Back to the 50s at Hidden Lake - 2008

If you miss the way things were back in maybe the 50s in
North Carolina, I have the place for you to spend a
nostalgic afternoon: Hidden Lake Campground right off of
highway 54 between Chapel Hill and Burlington, NC.

For five bucks you can spend the day at the little lake, and
hang out with people who have for generations been
perfecting the art of summertime, where the living is easy.

At this lake, I dare say that most patrons have yet to
attend their first in a series of political correctness
seminars.

In contrast there was plenty of beer drinking, cigarette
smoking, loud talking, joking around y'all, carrying-on, putting-
down, throwing-down, cussing, cutting-up, duck
feeding, duck chasing, raucous laughing, french fry eating,
Mountain Dew drinking, and Marshall Tucker Band: can't you
see, what that woman Lord, she's been doing to me?

As you can see, it was a fine afternoon and I was glad I
made my annual pilgrimage before the swimming season ends on
Labor Day. And there is one more little item to mention. It
is about one of life's little pleasures for old guys like myself.

First, let me explain that, oddly to some, my fun at the
lake consisted mostly of swimming. I brought my goggles and
swam "laps" from dock to dock out in the deeper part of the
lake for some time, with lots of resting in the sun on the
warm planks in between.

After a while, a young woman (Kelly) came to down to the lake
and I could tell by the change in verbal behavior of the
young men (I couldn't see much without my glasses) that she
was probably nice looking. She did look nice to me too, but
in a very blurry sort of way.

After I was finished with my laps, I swam to shore and
plopped down in a big play sand pile, wiggled my toes in the
warm sand and generally did a great job of looking exhausted
like some sort of 52 year old in training for an Iron Man
competition.

Lo and behold a vision appeared, and it was Kelly standing
over me. She was about the cutest 16 year old I've seen in
decades. She said that she and her friends wanted to know
how many times a week I swam and how far. Gosh, I had no
idea my swimming form was so impressive. I explained that I
was just swimming for general exercise and that I wasn't
preparing for anything special. She thanked me politely and
headed off to report back to her friends.

I laid in the sand for a while enjoying my new found
(and clearly transient) athletic glory, then rinsed myself off,
swam a victory lap just for the heck of it, and headed home.