Amsterdam Stories USA · Fragment ‘South’ · 6′17″

À deux pas d'Amsterdam, Georgia, détour par le lac Seminole à la rencontre d'un personnage étonnant : Jack Wingate. Jack est un homme de tradition. Il tient un certain protocole. Nous sommes prévenus.

A stone's throw from Amsterdam, Georgia, a detour by Lake Seminole to meet an astonishing character: Jack Wingate. Jack is a man of tradition. He keeps to a certain protocol. We have been warned.

Il nous dévoile le secret d'Amsterdam, Georgia.

He reveals to us the secret of Amsterdam, Georgia.

In Amsterdam, Georgia, it lay between two pretty good-sized creeks. And when the massive rains came, Amsterdam would be cut off from civilization, except the telephone and maybe some horses could get through. But sometimes it would be three and four days before the people could get in there to the little town of Amsterdam. That was always exciting to me to see all that water down in there.

Amsterdam, just like the old picture, Gone with the Wind, it just disappeared.

Jack a mis au point une méthode de pêche très spéciale : la pêche au bass.

Jack has perfected a very special fishing method: bass fishing.

The topwater bass fishing. Through the years, I developed this idea about topwater bass fishing. I have other ways of catching fish. Topwater bass fishing is my best. And with the topwater bass fishing, whether you catch the fish or not, when he hits it, it's like the man climbing Mount Everest to me.

I've just loved to fish all my life. And thanks to my wife, my children, I've been able to do that.

Jackie, la fille de Jack, avait quitté cette terre pour l'armée de l'air, mais elle est vite revenue. Son petit-fils, Jackson, va à son tour signer son engagement. Depuis toujours, ils sont en totale symbiose avec le lac Seminole. C'est le lac de Jack. C'est leur lac.

Jackie, Jack's daughter, had left this land for the Air Force, but she soon came back. His grandson, Jackson, is about to sign up in his turn. They have always lived in complete symbiosis with Lake Seminole. It is Jack's lake. It is their lake.

I was sitting out in the lake, sitting in my daddy's lap, and a huge, great, big old longleaf yellow pine fell out across. And I was sitting in his lap, three years old. And I caught my first fish there sitting in his lap. And I'm coming up on 82 years old now. And from then on, I've been hooked on fishing. Everywhere I go, everywhere I've been, I fished.

[Song]

My background is Cherokee and Lower Creek. Lower Creek comes from my mother's side, and the Cherokee comes from my father's side. My wife is a thirty-second Chickasaw. So I don't know what my children are. It doesn't matter. But I've taught them all their lives to think about the people and not the color of their skin.