Clear Water Pond: A Short Story

It has been said that the only thing that stays the same is that everything changes. That statement may or may not be entirely true depending on how a person defines the word everything. For some people everything is literally everything, and for other people, everything simply means anything. To a few Jasper County men, their teenage years spent on the hot and dusty road that lead to Clear Water pond was everything to them. Looking back on Jasper County, it is clear that time does really have a way of changing everything. From the untouched pine thicket that grew for hundreds of years, to the clear water pond that formed several years after the gravel pit was abandoned, and now the newly congested concrete jungle that people call Fork Shire Mall. Undisturbed forest and pine thickets covered most of Jasper County’s flat land for hundreds of years. The beauty of the ferns growing alongside a pine row was common place. There was a calm and refreshing feeling when walking under the thick, green canopy of the pine tops that hugged one another like best friends. However, as the years passed by the demand for timber increased with industrial growth. Sadly, after being invaded by man and machine, the pine thickets disappeared. …show more content…
The smell of a few surrounding pines was a sure way to know that Clear Water Road was close by. The refreshing water was for all to enjoy; even a few deer would be seen from time to time drinking before being spooked by one of the rowdy boys who frequented the area. It was not uncommon to see a half a dozen bikes come to a screeching halt just before being dumped over on their sides on the dusty bank of clear pond. All the boys would run and jump off the high side of the bank yelling, “Last one in is a rotten egg!” Those days were long but time was changing things in a