SOME SCARY SHIT
The photo above is the perfect introduction to who
I am and why I have volunteered to take on the dangerous job of Interim Highway
Superintendent at great personal risk.
The photo is from an historic postcard showing my
first headlong plunge off the high dive of the London, OH Municipal Swimming
Pool probably in the summer of 1961.
I'm as surprised as you are to find me on a
postcard.
I remember the moment very well, just had no idea
I was being photographed.
To my left is the place I saved a kid from
drowning.
To my right is my neighbor, Andy Pope, warming
himself on the cement between turns on the dive.
I had already jumped feetfirst many times, but
this was the first time I went headfirst.
You may notice the care with which my feet are
intertwined to keep them together (for better form after my older brother told me my feet were always splayed) and how very low I stooped
to launch (pure fear).
What is not shown is the line of kids behind me climbing the slippery shin cracking metal ladder while egging me on to my announced big moment.
Later when the pool got busy with swimmers we would be playing "horse" on the lower boards.
That is to say, the first player would go off doing whatever, and the
next would repeat the stunt while adding something.
If you failed to repeat and add to the growing list of tricks, you got a letter; getting all the letters to spell horse put you out of the game.
Kids also play a similar game with basketball shots.
In any case, after the stealth photoshoot we were playing horse on the lower board to the left.
An almost certain way to force a letter on somebody was to do a back
flip.
That's what the guy in front of me did, a back
flip.
Stepping onto the board my plan was to do a back
with half twist... easy for me, not for many others.
I was aware my competition stumbled during his takeoff-bounce, under rotated, clipped the board with his head on the way down, but I didn't think much about it till I got to the end of the board and began to pivot settling in for my own bounce.
There he was at the bottom of the pool... not
moving.
I looked around to shout an alert to the lifeguard, but he
was on the far side of the now loud and chaotic pool, oblivious, chatting with a girl who was hanging on his elevated chair.
He would not hear me.
No hesitation not even a thought.
Diving straght to the bottom I grabbed my
unconscious friend by
the trunks, pushed him up and over to the side, held him against the cement
until others gathered to pull him out coughing.
I was a Boy Scout and knew from reading Boy's Life Magazine to
stay behind and away from the hands of a drowning person.
An avid reader of all stories
heroism, daring, duty, and honor, I dreamt of the day I might be in a situation
to prove myself a good person like those in the stories.
But when it finally happened it was nothing like I imagined.
It was so fast and mundane I really didn't see it as anything until a few days later when my dad asked, "I heard you saved a boy at the pool. Did
that happen?"
Wincing a little sideways I mumbled almost imperceptibly at my shuffled feet, "Yeah, maybe, I guess."
I considered it a team effort and never thought about it again, though it was an event that measures my life.
I always knee-jerk react and fix anything that I see needs fixing, dangerous
or not.
So it's not surprising, given the current sad state of the world, that I see something gone horribly wrong and thoughtlessly jump in to help fix it.
I volunteered to take over the recently vacated Highway Superintendent post.
However, saying that doing so is dangerous greatly understates the true peril.
My presence will likely be loathed as I am walking into a culture of hatred, guns, and violence in order to assert control and help avoid another instance of a void opened only to be filled by the unimaginable.
Republicans have proven time and again they will stop at nothing to hold on to their perceived power, so when their oppo research fails to take me out (my writing and communication skills are strong), they will happily resort to their go-to second choice... violence... which I might not survive.
Fine by me.
I have already finished the story, but nobody will read it if I am not martyred.
If you have any doubt about the danger, check out the images below.
Some truly scary shit!