I really have no idea how I got out to the raft in the first place. I must have swum there—I mean, I know I swam, I was there, I did it—but since I really can't swim, you may begin to understand some of my puzzlement.
I don't remember if we were still living with my uncle's family at the time—that would have been the summer of 1973—or if it was later than that, when we were only visiting. I couldn't have been any younger than six, although I might have been as old as ten or eleven. It's hard to remember.
My uncle and aunt and cousins lived in the small town of Liberty, Utah, in the mountains east of Ogden. They didn't have much money, but boy-oh-boy did they have a wealth of fun things for small kids to do. There were woods and streams to explore, horses to ride, fish to catch, and trees to climb. Oh, yes, and there were lots of places to swim, too. We can't forget that.
On this particular summer day, I accompanied my cousins Steve and Denny, along with a handful of their friends, on a trek across hills and fields to a big square-edged pond in the midst of a cleared field. The pond must have been about two hundred feet on a side, and the other kids swore that it was at least a hundred and fifty feet deep, and that no one had ever managed to find the bottom.
Floating in the middle of this pond was a raft—a big platform made of thick planks lashed and nailed together. We all hopped in the water and swam out to the raft, where we spent the afternoon jumping off and climbing back on and generally having a high old time.
Now, I remember being pretty pleased with myself for actually managing to swim out to the raft. You see, I can't swim, at least not very well, and I'm deathly afraid of "big water"—a status for which this swimming hole was definitely big enough to qualify. I had flunked the basic YMCA swimming class twice, and I would rarely venture out of the shallow end of any pool, so I'm actually quite surprised that I was able to get out to the raft to begin with.
Of course, getting out there was not the same thing as getting back.
As the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the guys decided it was time to head back home. One by one, they dived off the raft and started stroking for shore—something like a hundred feet of water. I was the last one off, and whatever magic feather it was that had helped me get to the raft in the first place slipped from my fingers as I saw the other boys pulling way ahead, and felt myself growing achingly tired, and began to remember everything I'd been told about just how deep that swimming hole was. I knew I wasn't going to make it back to shore.
Have you ever felt the certainty that you were about to die? The knowledge that if someone from somewhere outside yourself doesn't do something for you, and fast, you're going to sink like a stone into that bottomless black sea of nothingness and the candle of your life will be snuffed out without so much as a by-your-leave from the universe? I have. I felt it that day with my arms and legs turning to lead in the water.
So I hollered for my cousin Steve. Steve is just about four months older than me, and if it requires any sort of physical skill he's always been better at it than I. In later years I would watch him swim a mile at Boy Scout camp in pursuit of his Lifesaving merit badge. He would go on to become a scuba instructor in Southern California. But for right then, all I knew was that Steve could save my life, and that he was the only thing that could save my life.
I really don't know whether or not I could have made it back to shore on my own. I do know that I was right about Steve being able to save my life. He was nearly to shore, but he turned right around, swam back to me, and towed me in to shore. It was a little embarrassing with all the other boys around, but I didn't care. The embarrassment trait always seems to go dormant somehow when it's a matter of life and death.
I don't know if I've ever thanked Steve for what he did for me that day. I should. Hell, I should call him up just for the sake of talking to him at all. He saved my life, and I haven't even talked to him for a year. He's now living on an Army base in Georgia, three thousand miles away from his family, depressed and as lonely as death, and I haven't even gone to the effort of picking up the phone and dialing his number for a year.
Now I'm the one on shore, and Steve's the one out there with his limbs turning to lead in the water. It may not be as big an act as what he did for me, but I think it's time for me to pay back a little of the debt I incurred that day.
I hope I'm strong enough.
