Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007140400
SECTION: SMITH MOUNTAIN TIMES PAGE: SMT-1 EDITION: BEDFORD
SOURCE: CHERYL ANN KAUFMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A giant of a man in cut-off blue jeans, his long hair and walrus-like mustache dripping water, passes a cigarette to his tattooed girlfriend.
A few yards away, a pair of coiffed women in designer bathing suits keep their splashing brood in sight from lawn chairs on the shore.
Lean teenage boys in bold bathing trunks make like kamikazes off the diving platform, trying to distract nearby girls.
Welcome to the beach at Smith Mountain Lake State Park.
Now in its second season, the beach offers a place for a wide mix of people who do not own property along the reservoir but who want a place in the sun.
Most of the people who congregate at this modest plot of sand are tourists from out of state or day trippers from Lynchburg, Roanoke, Danville and Martinsville, according to beach manager Gary Spencer.
Fifteen-year-old Melvin Shelton was visiting from Pittsylvania County. He was hanging out near the concession stand with two buddies, Thomas Thurman of Altavista and Jamie Bennett of Hurt.
"We came down here campin' to see women and stuff," Shelton said.
Just about that time, three teen-aged girls in strategically placed spandex breezed by.
"I mean, there's one right there," Shelton said as he motioned a greeting.
The girls ignored him.
Shelton seemed suddenly unimpressed.
"Ah, look. They didn't even wave," he said.
Meanwhile, at the concession stand a few yards away, 17-year-old Jeanette Shelor was selling soft drinks, hot dogs and wrist bands that indicate privileged passage to the beach. Admission is $1.75 for adults, $1.25 for children aged 3-12 and free for children under 3.
Expenses generated by admissions fees allow the Bluewater Cruise Co. to operate the concession stand and provide beach employees, while the state maintains the grounds.
Having to pay did not bother Stephanie Ra, a Roanoke nursing assistant who was spending the day at the lake with her younger sister, Alison.
Ra appreciated the new state park rule that limits the number of people on the beach to 1,000 at any given time. "One of the things I don't like about other public beaches is that they're so crowded. You feel like people are lying on top of you," she said.
The beach was filled to capacity when a throng of holiday travelers descended on it July 4. The overcrowding resulted in traffic jams and long lines at the gate.
"We've been getting a lot of bad press about the crowds, but I think if you talk to most people down here they've really enjoyed themselves," said beach manager Spencer.
Spencer said a typical weekday crowd is 400-500, with no waiting. The number is slightly more on the weekends, he said.
The only thing Ra did not like was the sand. "It's painful on your feet," she said.
Beach designers sacrificed comfort for practicality. The rougher sand will not wash into the lake as quickly as fine sand will.
The sand - and the 93-degree temperature - did not discourage Donna Lucas, 28, a real estate employee from Roanoke, from offering her bikini-clad body to the sun. The dermatalogist be damned - she was out to get a tan.
She and her boyfriend had made the 35-mile drive to the Bedford County beach. "It was a last-minute thing - we didn't bring a radio - we just threw in a couple of towels and some suntan lotion and took off," she said.
Down by the water, little Tasha Pollard eagerly leaned forward as a Roanoke YWCA counselor smeared her face with sunscreen.
"I just loooove to be by the shore," said Tasha, one of several 5-to-8-year-olds visiting from the YWCA. "I love to swim and get a suntan."
"I can't take much sun," countered gray-haired James Stevens as he sat beneath a tree along the edge of the woods overlooking the beach some 150 yards away. "I'm just too old," he said.
Stevens and his wife, Juanita, had traveled from Roanoke to sit with their 20-month-old granddaughter, Brittany, while her parents enjoyed the water.
"It's gonna be the nicest beach in the state of Virginia - better than Virginia Beach," he said.
"Because it's close, that's why," interjected his wife.
"And there's no shade there," he chuckled.
Later, as the sun faded into the west, a young mother laden with a radio, beach bag, cooler and chair, slumped up the incline toward the parking lot.
Behind her lagged a splindly, sun-kissed boy toting his own beach paraphernalia - a towel, a bucket and a small raft.
"Are you OK?," she called back over her shoulder, sensing his fatigue.
He did not answer.
He just trudged along - a tired smile wrinkling his pink face.
by CNB