Last Summer I went Swimming…
One day when I was really young. I was afraid to learn how to swim. Hell, I was afraid of the water.
It was a bright, breezy summer day and I was wrist deep in a cooler gripping an ice cold Hansen’s Mandarain Lime Soda when my mother lay into me like a salesman; telling me allI had to do was learn how to doggy paddle and she would buy us tickets to Hawaii. I didn’t know much about Hawaii other than that people seemed to want to go there.
“Just get in the shallow end and wade around.” She said. “Then we’ll slowly get you floating; and then you’ll be doing the backstroke in no time!”
I considered this. Overall, her pitch wasn’t grabbing me. The pool scared me. I almost drowned in my cousins’s bathtub once; it was not a pleasant memory. Also, It sounded like a whole process. I liked the idea of swimming but why put in all that time and effort for that when my sandbox was right there.
Ah….my sandbox. My sweet safe sandbox…
I was heading back to my excavation when suddenly I was being lifted up into the sky. Haphazardly staring at the tree line in the distance I flung my head around to see my dad’s tan and hairy beer belly.
I flailed for my life as my the man I used to trust most in the world walked us to the other side of the pool; beer in one hand, screaming future parental emancipation petitioner in the other.
With a solid heave the man tossed me in the water head first. At first I sunk like a stone to the bottom. I swear, it must have been 25 or 30 feet deep. All of a sudden, I felt the cold hard bottom of the pool with I feet. I opened my eyes and, for half a second, felt strangely calm. The aqua-marine color was almost soothing and I was struck by the light dancing along the walls of the pool. I looked straight up to see my dad’s warped face staring down at me through the wavy water; grinning.
At that moment, I recalled that oxygen was something I needed to survive. I opened my mouth and water poured in.
I’m drowning!
I used the bottom of the pool as a jumping board and rocketed myself towards the surface with all my might. I shot out into the fresh air like a torpedo. I started flailing all around while simeltaniously taking huge gasping breaths. After quietly watching me suffer for about thirty seconds, my dad grabbed me out of the pool by the scruff and placed me in the grass like he was saving a snail from a busy sidewalk.
“Why… (*gasP*) Did you…? (*gAsP*)…”
My dad looked down at me.
“Hey pal. I’m sorry. I just wanted to speed things up.” He sid-eyed my mother who was settling into a nice 2:30 siesta.
“I promise I wo’t do it again.”
Bull. shit.
“But hey.. That shallow end don’t look so bad no more do it.”
I looked over at the shallow end. By god the man was right. That calm side of the pool looked enticing to the watery tempest that I just experienced. I walked over and plopped down into the water. I felt the same bottom of the pool on my toes, but this time it felt warmer. I walked around and paddled a bit. I felt good.
