My friend Buddy took this picture of me on the Sabine River in 2009. I hadn’t seen it in years, but I found it yesterday when going through files on my old computer. Here’s the story behind the photo—one of the weirder episodes from my first book, Running the River: Secrets of the Sabine.
About a mile from the boat ramp, we came upon a waterfall gurgling over a rocky ledge, into a sheltered green pool beside the river. The cavelike walls of the cove were painted green with moss. Sunlight reflected off the water and danced like currents of electricity through the shadows. I had never seen anything so pretty on the Sabine.
“We might have to go swimming later,” Buddy said, and I agreed.
Not far beyond the cove we came to a strange scene: an unmanned boat floating in the middle of the water. It sounded like the engine was running. When we came closer, we saw a long, white hose extending from the boat into the river. At one spot a few feet away, we noticed air steadily bubbling to the surface. Just then a man’s head bobbed up from the brown water, wearing a scuba mask, goggles, and a breathing apparatus.
“Looking for mussels?” I asked.
The man affirmed my question by lifting his bag of shells out of the water. But my camera and questions aroused his suspicion. “Are y’all from the FBI?”
We said no, and when we boated past, the diver sank beneath the water. We eased a little farther downriver, through frequent rapids where the flow quickened and the boat scraped over rocks and gravel, and we passed the many abandoned concrete and wooden oilfield structures that I had marveled at during my earlier trip with Jacob. I watched the shoreline for signs of hogs, but my attention soon began to wander, and I started to imagine the view of the riverbanks from two hundred years ago, when the first settlers arrived.
Today, East Texas is scrub country. What land has not been paved or plowed is choked with thorn vines and brush. But at one time, the forest canopy was so thick it blocked the sunlight from the undergrowth, and the smaller plants that did manage to survive in the dark forests were cleared by occasional fires, leaving trees so large and well established that early travelers called this place the Pine Barrens.
“They say the pine trees used to be so tall in East Texas, you could ride a horse for miles, fall asleep in the saddle, and never hit a tree limb,” I said to Buddy as we drifted downriver. “There used to be huge trees here on the river, too. Just think how much prettier all this would be if we hadn’t cut everything down.”
Buddy glanced up from the trolling motor and studied the brush on the bank. “You can’t think about it that way,” he said. “It’s still pretty. East Texas is still pretty. Just be thankful you get to see it the way it is, because someday all of this will be gone, too.” He had a point, but I hoped he was wrong. Growing up, I had never given a second thought to this wild river running through my hometown. Now that I had spent some time on the Sabine, I didn’t want to lose what remained.
Buddy and I never saw the hogs, so we turned back. The flow that had seemed so calm when we floated downstream was now a force we hadn’t reckoned with, and we spent most of the journey trudging through the water and fighting the current as we dragged the boat upstream. At times the water came only to my hips, sometimes up to my chest, but then I would step off a precipice and fall into a deeper channel. I learned to use my foot to feel for the firmness of the riverbed before committing my weight to a step forward. Before long, I forgot about my fear of being swept away by the river. As long as I stayed alert and moved slowly, I didn’t have to worry so much about drowning after all.
When we returned to the waterfall and the pretty little cove, we parked on some boulders at the entrance and jumped in. The water was cold and deep here and stunningly clear: I could see the bottom some eight feet below. Above us, the clearwater creek had worn the ground away to the eroded rock, cascading through a series of precipices, before tumbling into the cove. Buddy swam over to the waterfall and let it pound his back and shoulders. “It feels just like a back massage,” he said with glee. “You gotta try this.”
I did. It felt great. “Man, I could even bring a woman here,” I said.
This was the discovery of a lifetime, the kind of place that Buddy could enjoy with his wife and kids for years to come. We swam for a long while, then waded out of the cove and into the river. The water was much warmer here, around waist deep, brown, and muddy. Our toes sank into the silt.
When we returned to the cove a few minutes later, something had changed. “Wasn’t the waterfall a lot bigger when we first got here?” I asked. Instead of gushing over the ledge, the water had narrowed to a trickle. Then, as we watched with increasing horror, it began to grow again. Within minutes, the waterfall was surging at full strength. It was like someone had flushed an enormous toilet. Oh no, that was it! We were swimming in sewage—the discharge from the wastewater plant in Gladewater. No wonder the cove was so cool and clear. No wonder we kept smelling that faint odor of chlorine. I spit what I could out of my mouth.
We climbed out of the cove and then ascended a steep, grassy bank to see where the creek led. We came to an even bigger waterfall and then a series of smaller ones. We walked as far as we could through a leafy forest to a barbed-wire fence, then returned to the river and stood for a moment on the big gray rocks beside the beautiful cove.
“I don’t even care,” Buddy said. “It might be sewage, but they treated it first.”
We jumped back in. At one point, Buddy even swam under the waterfall, where he indulged in another back massage.
Excerpted from Running the River: Secrets of the Sabine by Wes Ferguson and Jacob Botter and published by Texas A&M University Press.
4,859 responses to “A Sheltered Cove”
The visuals and examples really helped me understand IL.
I have realized some new items from your web-site about computer systems. Another thing I’ve always presumed is that computer systems have become a specific thing that each residence must have for most reasons. They offer convenient ways to organize homes, pay bills, shop, study, focus on music and in many cases watch tv programs. An innovative strategy to complete these tasks has been a notebook computer. These desktops are mobile ones, small, powerful and convenient.
hey there and thank you to your information ? I?ve definitely picked up something new from right here. I did on the other hand experience several technical points using this website, since I experienced to reload the web site lots of times previous to I could get it to load correctly. I have been brooding about if your web hosting is OK? Not that I’m complaining, but sluggish loading cases instances will sometimes impact your placement in google and could damage your high-quality rating if ads and ***********|advertising|advertising|advertising and *********** with Adwords. Anyway I am including this RSS to my email and could look out for much extra of your respective exciting content. Make sure you replace this once more soon..
This blog was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something which helped me. Kudos.
Pornstar
Sex
Buy Drugs
Finally a guide that makes bridging feel easy!
Very useful content! I found your tips practical and easy to apply. Thanks for sharing such valuable knowledge!
Have you ever considered creating an ebook or guest authoring on other blogs? I have a blog centered on the same subjects you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my subscribers would value your work. If you are even remotely interested, feel free to send me an e-mail.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Therefore let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
As I web-site possessor I believe the content material here is rattling great , appreciate it for your efforts. You should keep it up forever! Best of luck.
Buy Drugs
Hello, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, great blog!
Scam
Hi, i feel that i noticed you visited my website thus i got here to ?go back the desire?.I’m attempting to find issues to improve my web site!I suppose its good enough to make use of a few of your ideas!!
I acquired more new things on this weight-loss issue. One issue is a good nutrition is extremely vital whenever dieting. A huge reduction in bad foods, sugary meals, fried foods, sweet foods, red meat, and whitened flour products could possibly be necessary. Possessing wastes bloodsuckers, and wastes may prevent targets for losing weight. While specific drugs momentarily solve the matter, the nasty side effects usually are not worth it, and so they never offer more than a short-lived solution. It can be a known undeniable fact that 95 of celebrity diets fail. Thanks for sharing your opinions on this web site.
Scam
You actually make it appear really easy with your presentation but I to find this topic to be really one thing which I feel I would never understand. It seems too complicated and extremely wide for me. I am taking a look forward in your subsequent submit, I will attempt to get the hang of it!
An fascinating discussion is price comment. I think that you must write extra on this matter, it might not be a taboo subject however usually people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
This was a great read! Your insights are truly helpful and make complex topics easy to understand. Looking forward to more!
I?m impressed, I have to say. Really not often do I encounter a blog that?s both educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you have got hit the nail on the head. Your idea is excellent; the problem is something that not enough people are talking intelligently about. I am very happy that I stumbled throughout this in my seek for one thing referring to this.
Thanks, I have been searching for details about this subject matter for ages and yours is the best I have discovered so far.
Greetings from California! I’m bored to death at work so I decided to check out your blog on my iphone during lunch break. I love the knowledge you provide here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home. I’m surprised at how fast your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyhow, amazing site!
Thanks for your publish. My partner and i have generally seen that many people are eager to lose weight because they wish to look slim and attractive. Even so, they do not always realize that there are additional benefits to losing weight in addition. Doctors claim that obese people come across a variety of diseases that can be directly attributed to the excess weight. Thankfully that people who definitely are overweight along with suffering from various diseases are able to reduce the severity of their illnesses by means of losing weight. It is possible to see a steady but notable improvement in health while even a small amount of losing weight is reached.
Viagra
Buy Drugs
Wish I had this guide when I first started farming.
A must-read before jumping into NFTs on Polygon.
Viagra
Viagra
Great content—helps avoid common mistakes with liquidity.
Thanks a lot for the helpful posting. It is also my opinion that mesothelioma has an extremely long latency period, which means that the signs of the disease may well not emerge till 30 to 50 years after the 1st exposure to asbestos fiber. Pleural mesothelioma, which can be the most common type and has effects on the area around the lungs, could potentially cause shortness of breath, upper body pains, and also a persistent coughing, which may lead to coughing up body.
Really helped me rethink how I provide liquidity in DeFi.
Helpful breakdown of how to use Polygon the smart way.
The real-life scenarios were super relatable and useful.
My brother suggested I may like this blog. He was totally right. This post actually made my day. You cann’t believe just how so much time I had spent for this information! Thank you!
Porn
Viagra
Hola! I’ve been following your web site for a while now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Atascocita Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the excellent work!
I would like to thnkx for the efforts you’ve put in writing this website. I’m hoping the same high-grade blog post from you in the upcoming also. In fact your creative writing skills has inspired me to get my own website now. Actually the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a good example of it.
Thank you, I have just been searching for info approximately this subject for ages and yours is the greatest I have discovered till now. However, what about the conclusion? Are you positive concerning the supply?
Pornstar
Porn site
Porn site
I appreciate, cause I found exactly what I was looking for. You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a nice day. Bye
Buy Drugs
Porn
Scam
With every thing which appears to be building inside this specific subject matter, a significant percentage of opinions are generally rather radical. Nevertheless, I beg your pardon, because I can not give credence to your entire plan, all be it stimulating none the less. It appears to us that your remarks are generally not completely rationalized and in actuality you are yourself not wholly convinced of your assertion. In any event I did enjoy reading through it.