Nightswimming Revisited by Gene Woolfolk, Jr.

From: http://www.myspace.com/genewoolfolkjr

It was the summer of 1980 in Athens, GA, home of the University of
Georgia Bulldogs. I was working for Danver's International, a fast
food restaurant on Atlanta Highway, as an assistant manager. I lived
with three other guys in a two bedroom apartment at Sussex Club
Apartments. One of my roommates, Jim "Mal" Mallory, was a graduate
psychology student and also one of my night time employees at
Danver's. Jim and I had finished closing the restaurant one night in
June, along with the help of Susan McChesney, another graduate
psychology student who was working as a cashier nightly at Danver's.
We left the restaurant and went to our apartment complex, which was
about a mile down the road. When we reached the apartment, we
decided
to sit around the pool and drink beer. It was incredibly hot, even
for June, for after midnight.

I suggested we go swimming. When Mal said we didn't have anything
to swim in, Susan and I countered with "Who needs a swim suit!" I
mean...it was summer in a college town....in other words, the city
was
almost deserted. It was late at night, there were no lights in the
pool and it was too damn hot to just sit around and drink beer. This
was the first night with the original Nightswimmers.

So, it became the thing for us to do. Every night after we
closed,
we'd find a pool at an apartment complex to swim in. Yes, we were
swimming naked! As the summer progressed, Jim, Susan and I would
tell
our friends about what we were doing. As the summer wore on, we'd
slowly grow in numbers as we all continued to ask our friends to join
us for our skinny-dipping parties. As for me, being nude around
friends and srangers took away alot of inhibitions society had
caused. It was fun and exhilerating.

By the middle of July, friends were inviting other friends. There
were about fifteen of us one night at an apartment across the street
from Gloria's apartment (sorry Gloria, I just haven't been able to
remember your last name. Gloria was also a grad student in
psychology (counseling). This was the night that the guys, who had
just formed a local band that they called R.E.M., showed up for the
skinny-dipping party. I remeber people advising me to stay away from
Michael because he was gay, bi-sexual or something like that. Later
in life, Michael made a significant statement when asked if he was
gay
or bi-sexual. Michael stated, "I'm just very sexual."

The numbers continued to grow. And as Michael later put it,
September's coming soon. It was finally decided that the last
skinny-
dipping party of the summer would be held at River Mill Apartments,
the largest student community on campus. I had to work that night
but
I did plan to attend after we closed. Besides, that was how we
started....after work. But, there was no real leadership in the
nightswimming episodes. And, some moron decided to start the party
early, like 9PM . Over a hundred people had already shown up at
River
Mill, and now they were all skinny-dipping. Welllllllllll......,
needless to say the police were called and numerous students were
hauled off for indecent exposure ( I still haven't figured out why we
consider the nude human body indecent). When I finally got off work
that night, it was already over.....nightswiming was just another
page
in the book of history in what would turn out to be a national
championship season for those Georgia Bulldogss.

I miss my days in Athens and think of them often. It was several
years later (almost 10 years later) that Michael and REM released
Automatic for the People which included the song Nightswimming. A
song that is written about a photograph on the dashboard of the car
that was taken years ago. A song that is about the summer of 1980 in
Athens, GA.