BY REBECCA WILBERT
Just as the sun was beginning to rise, a small crowd of family and friends gathered on a bridge overlooking Lake Rabun in northeast Georgia. They came to see Mountain Brook resident Cissy Jackson as she geared up to swim the length of Rabun, from one dam to the other, an over eight-mile journey which took five hours and 40 minutes.
Jackson’s husband Steve was alongside her in a green canoe that carried the necessities like peanut butter and bananas. It was a misty silent morning as she entered the water in her black bathing suit and hot pink swim cap with matching pink swim buoy. It wasn’t raining, but not sunny either; Jackson later described it as a “beautiful morning.” After walking the shallow edge by Seed Dam, Jackson embarked at 6:48 a.m. on her long swim, first with breaststroke and then freestyle.
Jackson and her family have long spent summers at Rabun, a scenic lake in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 1950, her grandfather leased a strip of land from Georgia Power where the family has since built homes and cabins. When she was a little girl, she would swim alongside the boat to a little beach where the family picnicked and built sandcastles. “I was always a swimmer,” she says.
Jackson grew up competitively swimming and returned to the sport when she joined a Masters Swim group in Birmingham. After being convinced to race in a relay, she decided to enter a couple other races as well and ended up qualifying for the U.S. Masters Swimming Nationals. This sparked her love for swimming once again. She also ran a few marathons along the way, including the Mercedes Marathon, but that’s another story.
Thinking about how to celebrate her 60th birthday, Jackson was inspired by the Lake Rabun Yakkers, a group of ladies who annually kayak dam to dam. With her connection to the lake, love of swimming and inspiration from the Yakkers, the idea to celebrate her birthday with a swim blossomed. She had thought of other places to swim, including the English Channel or to Alcatraz, but nothing else felt as right. “This water, I’ll drink it,” Jackson says, while sitting at her family’s boathouse the day before her swim. “I’m just comfortable in it. It feels like my own skin.”
Jackson’s longest previous swim at the lake was five and a half miles. Though she also trained in a pool, she prefers swimming in the lake. “There’s just something about being by yourself looking down in the green water,” she says. “It’s just a very pleasant place for me.”
Jackson also spoke about her struggles with shoulder pain and how that had sometimes affected her training mileage. However, she made it clear that her shoulder pain was not going to stop her, and she would get on her back and kick if need be. Nothing was going to stop her “unless it starts lightning,” she offers.
Jackson, who turned 60 in July but waited to swim until August when the lake would be quieter, also said she was feeling “very nervous.” During her nearly nine-mile journey, Jackson was accompanied by friends and family. Her husband and cousin alternated paddling beside her. A pair of friends paddleboarded a stretch with her. Supporters sat on boathouses waiting for her to swim by, playing songs on speakers including Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” and the theme song from Rocky. She made a point to speak to everyone, not seeming out of breath or tired.
At about mile three, in a part of the lake known as “the narrows,” Jackson says she was feeling great. She commented that it was a calm Monday morning on the lake, besides one wakeboarder, and then she swam off with a butterfly stroke.
At around 12:15 p.m., just under six hours since the start, Mathis Dam was in Jackson’s eyesight. She was about a quarter mile away when people on boats started circling her, cheering and shouting things like, “We’re so proud of you” and “Go Cissy.” Friends and family clapped and celebrated as she finished her freestyle and stood up in the shallow water. The boats pointed at the dam as Jackson slammed her palm against it. Jumping up and down, she ripped off her swim cap. Taking a dunk into her favorite lake, she knew she had really done it. She said, “That wasn’t so bad,” with a big smile.
Jackson then hopped into her husband’s canoe, and he paddled to a boathouse belonging to one of the Yakkers, where a victory celebration awaited with champagne and fireworks. The celebration also included a cake with an intricate design of Lake Rabun, known for its long, winding shape. Jackson sliced and passed the cake. She posed for pictures, including with her 87-year-old parents who live down the road from her at the lake and with her daughter Sarah Frances, a graduate of Mountain Brook High School and now an Alabama law school student. They posed under a sign that read, “Dam Cissy.”
In between bites of Rabun-themed strawberry cake, Jackson says, “I just feel really happy I was able to do this. There’s satisfaction in setting a goal and achieving it.”
Author Rebecca Wilbert, a sophomore at Pace Academy in Atlanta, is no stranger to Lake Rabun. She and her family have a house on the lake in the narrows where she can watch Cissy swim by on her 60th birthday.
