I DREAM OF YOU OHOOPEE

As clear as any great white wine having
Missed the red Georgia clay,
From a spring in Washington County
It started its wandering way,
Passing Mason’s Bridge where we’d climb
Out on a sweet gum limb
Plunging eagerly into its dark cool depths searching
For the bottom before our lungs burst.
No bottom at Mason’s Bridge
Or so the old timers said.
On she flowed through sandy loam
Seeking the sea, her final home.
On past a bend with golden sand,
Yellow Landing was molded by the Almighty’s hand.
It was here I learned to swim and where small caves
Formed in the banks and Pig Moore excelled.
Pig was a fisherman like no other
His quarry the wiley bass
Into the caves he’d swim and hands
Along logs and roots would pass.
Pig was different - what we’d call
a hand fisherman down South.
When he’d surface, you could see his catch
In both hands and his mouth.
Route 80 bridge spanned the river and swamp
An there was James’ well
An artesian flow so sweet and soft
One sip and you were under it’s spell
Timber Landing where the Baptists came
To wash their sins away
A super swimming hole where in the eighteen hundreds
Logs who find their way.
To be floated when the river was high to mills down by the sea.
Older boys made sport of us and made
Us fear old Blue Hole
A scary place both dark and deep with tales of depths untold.
Oh, Ohoopee! Ohoopee, Ohoopee of my youth,
Roll on you clear proud stream
Your beauty has so entrenched me,
You’re still my boyhood dream.

by Paul Kea