The Water's Edge

In the summer of ’62,

the school offered

a summer  program

where kids were invited to school

for only one purpose – having fun.

There were no classrooms, books,

homework, tests, or detention,

only playing games and going swimming

at the city pool in a nearby town.

Mom would let me go to the city pool

as long as I agreed to stay  

at the shallow end

and obey the lifeguards;

I didn’t know how to swim.

I knew all too well the danger

of getting in over your head.

Once I was walking

around the pool area

of a friend of my aunt’s.

As they went back inside the house,

I remained outside and

was told to stay out of the pool.

There was a beach ball floating

near the edge that drew me

like a powerful magnet.

For lack of anything better to do

and with no intentions of getting into the pool,

I reached out for the ball

and fell into the water.

I was literally drowning

within an arm’s reach

of the edge of the pool!

I cried for help as I thrashed about.

Twice I went under and was

going down for the third time

when my aunt pulled me out of the water.

The bus bound for the city pool

usually left around eleven in the morning

on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,

weather permitting.

Watching the other kids jump off the high dive

at the city pool sorely tempted me.

Eventually my commitment

to stay out of the deep

was fast becoming as shallow

as the pool that I was wading in.

Completely forgetting about

my near drowning,

I fearlessly went up the ladder to the high dive.

All I did was walk to the end of the board

and jumped toward the ladder

at the left side of the pool.

For a week I performed

this stunt without incident

or interrogation by the lifeguard on duty.

Only once did a lifeguard suspect something,

but I told him that I could swim.

I figured if I got into trouble

the lifeguard would rescue me

and ban me from the diving board.

I was in deep and loving it….

One day while I was playing

in the shallow end of the pool,

the same lifeguard asked me again

if I knew how to swim.

I confessed.

He never rebuked me

for my foolhardiness;

I suspect he saw something

of himself in me

when he was my age.

So over the next several visits

he took the time

to teach me how to swim

in the safety of his presence

in the shallow end of the pool.

Once I proved to him

I could swim from

one end to the other,

He sent me back to the high dive.

This time I jumped

in the middle and

swum to the ladder

without any fear!

I don’t remember
the lifeguard's name,

but he helped me

to launch out into the deep,

like a fledgling leaving the nest.

Little did I know

that a river rat was born that day

no longer grasping

to the water’s edge.