Lakeside Country Club

by David Miller

"You know, we helped to build this club," my grandfather told me over plates of lox and onions. "We were charter members. We wanted to play golf, swim, but the Country Club of Virginia didn't allow Jews." "Oh," I said, watching a black man with a bow-tie fill our water glasses. I must've been about 10, and nothing made sense - the country clubs, the golf courses, dressing up just to eat lunch - except the small dam we had to walk over to get to the clubhouse. There was a stream that roared out of a tube, splashing down 20 feet back into the creek bed from where it had been taken, and had to return.

6S

David Miller, both a fiction and nonfiction writer, is a regular contributor to magazines such as Mountain Gazette, and the webmag Matador Travel.