Oct 29, 2011

Almost accident in Moat's pool.

One of the worst jobs of two that I specifically remember as a youth growing up on a farm was weeding the garden and mowing the lawn. This was prior to when I began milking and feeding the cows and doing the hay in the summer. I remember that we had a huge garden and it was at least 100 acres large. Now of course that is stretching the truth by 99 and ¼ acres but to a young kid it was way too much. The lawn was pretty close to the same size as well and we used a push mower, without a motor attached to it as happened in later years of my childhood. (And oh what a great day that was.)

Anyway I remember a particular day so very well that I am often reminded of it and was especially reminded of it during my years of service in Scouting. My older brother Lynn and I had been assigned to weed the corn. (99 of those 100 acres) Those rows looked so long and it was at least 150 degrees outside as well, Ok maybe 95 to 98 degrees, and I was not in the mood to weed the garden after all it was summertime and you were supposed to have fun in the summer. Well as luck would have it my brother had a friend, David Moat, whose family lived down off the hill from our farm and they were very, very rich. I judged that by the fact that they had an outdoor swimming pool. Well David had asked Lynn to come swimming in their pool that day and mother agreed that he could but with two stipulations, 1. That he weed the corn first and 2. That he take me along as well. I still don’t remember why Leesa wasn’t invited but knew that I was.  So Lynn and I worked really hard getting the corn weeded. I am sure as I look back at other times when I have weeded the garden that on that particular day I probably didn’t do the best job of weeding that I might have done in later years. But it was not very long, maybe 40 hours, really 2 hours later that we were headed down to David’s place to go swimming.

Now I was raised as I stated on a farm and with no swimming pool but we did have a canal that ran behind the house up a little ways on the hill. We would go swimming in it almost daily (and I never ever got sick from all that bacteria that was surely in the somewhat dirty and muddy water) after chores were done, usually weeding the garden and mowing the lawn since that was when we would need it the most. So I was a great swimmer in 2 to 2 and a half feet of water.  That particular day though I would discover that I wasn’t a great swimmer at all when it came to 8 feet of water.

We were swimming in David’s pool and I was enjoying the shallow 3 foot end quite well but kept getting told to come into the deep end. Well I finally relented and with a great deal of trepidation and fear jumped from the edge out into the deep end of the pool. Lynn and David then promptly decided they were done and got out of the pool and went into the house leaving me there fighting for my life in the deep end of the pool. (I was only 10 or 11 years old as I remember.) I remember the fear that I had of the water as I would start to sink into the pool’s murky depths and the struggle to come back to the top of the water and desperately try to make the edge where I could hang on and crawl out. Well as you can tell I didn’t drown but I did gain a very healthy respect for water and leaving children alone in it. I finally made the edge and probably didn’t even get my hair wet by anything other than splashing water on it and then went into the house. I didn’t drown as so thought that I surely would.

I didn’t like water much after that and didn’t spend time in it other than the continued splashing in the canal and taking occasional baths as required by mom at least until I was 17 years old. I had earned everything I needed to become an Eagle Scout by the age of 14 except my Eagle Scout service project and two merit badges. Yes the only two required badges that I didn’t have were swimming and lifesaving. At that time scouting did not have alternate badges that could be earned if you were not a swimmer so they had to be done. Then at age 17 Sister Caldwell moved into the ward with her husband and family and she was a highly trained swimming lifeguard. Somehow she discovered that all I lacked was those two merit badges and took me on as a special assignment. I had graduated from high school, lost a good friend and fellow classmate, John, to a drowning accident in the new Starvation lake just up river from Duchesne the day after graduation and had given up on ever earning the rank of Eagle Scout. Sister Caldwell however changed that for me and we went swimming,  pretty much everyday, for that rest of that summer in either Starvation reservoir, the Roosevelt Pool or the Price pool until I earned those last two very difficult badges. I have many times told this story to young men who were close to the Eagle Rank when I took them on a special projects as well. I can now say I am not deathly afraid of water, even though I still have a very healthy respect for it, and I am so thankful for a friend who cared enough to take me on as a special project. I don’t take non-swimmers on as projects but refer them to professionals but I have helped several make the last efforts to complete the requirements of the Eagle Scout Rank and have seen and felt the joy of giving that service. Thank You Sister Caldwell.

I have written the same stories now several times and here is another version to see if my memory is the same. I guess I need to figure out how to title them so I know when they have been completed.

Growing up on a farm had some distinct disadvantages that later in my life as I was preparing to leave the farm were finally somewhat resolved. Really growing up on a farm had a lot more advantages than many of those who live in the city have but when it came to swimming I almost lost out. My Brother had a good friend that lived down in the river bottoms from our home. We could walk to his place in just a few minutes and play there with the friend and his sister who was my age. One summer morning it was very hot outside and Lynn’s friend had invited us to go down to their home and go swimming. They had an outdoor pool and it was a fun place to cool off. We mostly swam in the canal above our home but it was only 2 feet deep so to really swim wasn’t an option. We could float for a coupe miles on inner tubes and we could wade and splash and cool off and just kind of really get dirty since the canal water wasn’t really very clean.  This particular day though we liked the offer to go down to the pool where the water was a little deeper and a whole lot more fun. Mom however decided that in order to get the corn weeded that she would require that we finish about four to six rows of corn each and then we could go. Now that seems like a pretty small task but to us it was huge since we didn’t like to weed the garden and the fact that the corn was so small still it would have to be weeded more carefully than if it were late in the summer after the corn was tall and would also offer some shade or relief from the sun. We did get it done and I don’t recall how long it took although I am sure for me at that time it seemed like hours but it was probably only two or three in reality.  We completed the task and I should probably add that I don’t know how well it was completed but at least we made an effort and then we grabbed our swimming trunks and headed down through the fields and off the edge of the hill to where the pool sat waiting for us. Little did I know what was about to happen or I would probably have headed to the canal instead that wasn’t so deep or so fun.  I had never learned to swim and as we swam that day I stayed in the shallow end of the pool where it was only three to four feet deep. Being only around  10 or 11years old I was not that tall either so even those depths offered a challenge to my non-swimming capabilities. Lynn and David Moat, Lynn’s friend, however often chided me to go into the deep end and learn to swim. When I finally did jump in the deep end and started to sink to the bottom they decided they were tired and got out and went into the house. I am sure if Dave’s dad would have known there would have been some no swimming days ahead. I did however go back to the surface scared as could be and I am sure that I must have looked like a frantic windmill waving my arms through the water in an effort to get back to safety. I was sure that I was going to drown that day and in a way I did because I developed a fear of water that I have to literally overcome each time I enter a swimming pool. I did learn to swim as I kind of alluded too in the beginning of this story. When I was 17 I was not yet an Eagle Scout and I was not because I could not swim and two merit badges were required at that time which were Swimming and Life Saving. I could now kind of swim but as I also mentioned I was very afraid of the deep water. Sister Caldwell however moved into the ward and upon discovering that I was so close to the Eagle and had only those two badges she determined it was time for me to learn. She was a professional lifeguard and very qualified to teach me to swim so after I graduated from High School she made sure that through almost daily swimming in one of three places I would learn to swim. It was either Starvation Reservoir, the Roosevelt pool or the Price pool. I also had a job at the Texaco in town from 10 PM to 6 AM every night of the week so the swimming was either early in the morning or early enough at night that I could get back to my job at 10:00 pm. I learned to swim and learned to not be afraid of the water as much as I had been but I do still respect the water very much and know that it can take you all too quickly if you are not on your guard or have someone else who is there for that reason. I do now love to swim even though as I stated earlier there is a small battle that rages in my mind each time prior to taking that first plunge into the pool.

I guess it really doesn't matter if I do write them twice as the information is almost the same, just a little different due to the mood and circumstances as I am writing each version.