In a landlocked state like Arkansas, lakes become the magnetic north of warm-weather fun. During high school, my friends and I often made the drive from Little Rock to Lake Greers Ferry, where we jumped from the bluffs into the lake. We were children on the cusp of adulthood, old enough to have cars and the freedom to make the hour-plus trip, but still young enough that we had curfews and needed permission to go.
There’s a thrill in jumping from height into deep water. Standing at the precipice, you feel fear at the void between you and the lake’s surface below. Jumping requires momentarily setting that anxiety aside and simply making the leap. The water first approaches slowly, giving you a beat to reconsider what you’d done, but then the lake comes at you with increasing quickness. Finally, there’s the violent, wet crash of striking the water and clawing your way back to the surface for air. As teenagers, I suspect we played at danger because we each secretly believed we were untouchable, immortal.
The Army Corps of Engineers completed the Greers Ferry Dam that created the lake in December 1962. The following October, President Kennedy spoke at the dedication. The ceremony marked his last major public event before he flew to Texas, where he’d be assassinated the next month. Today, that history is a footnote to the lake’s vibrant present, where visitors camp below the dam at John F. Kennedy Park, or delight in the cold-water trout at the nearby Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery…