Old Dirt Road : Swimmin Hole

 Another story to which I cannot apply a precise age or date, although I do recall the events very clearly among so very many others.

 About three quarters of a mile from our house through the woods and orange groves there lies a little pond that my brothers, sisters, friends, and  I as kids simply called “The lake”. The lake was, (and I hope still remains) a beautiful place with a narrow little beach that ran almost all the way around it’s edge, blocked only for a few feet with some bushes and weeds in one little place, which , of course was no obstacle to a bunch of rowdy kids. The water was always a beautiful blue color, and it was cool and refreshing to splash around in. There were not a lot of the weeds and hyacinths which choke most of our Florida lakes and waterways today. Below is a picture of a similar size lake near where I live now. It is a nice place where I have caught some speck and catfish, but it doesn’t have the beach all around like ours had. I really want to take my camera and go to the old homestead and take some pictures like this.

 The water temperature was always the same, perfect. We didn’t know it then, but it is one of Florida’s many spring fed lakes. We enjoyed so many summer days playing and chasing each other around in the water, making up “tag” games and trying to out-do one another in impromptu contests like “Bet I can beat you to the other side!”. Or “I can stay under longer than you.”

 The first few times I went to the lake, I hadn’t yet learned to swim, so of course I found myself missing out on all the fun that the others were having. I wanted so desperately to get in on the action, I’d go out a little way and try to do what I saw the others doing, but it didn’t work for me. Every time I tried it, my face went under, and the rest of my body followed it right to the bottom!

 One day one of my bigger brothers (whom I won’t name here) came up and grabbed both my hands and dragged me out farther than I’d been before and just let me go. I sank. Just lying there face down on the bottom felt peaceful and quiet, all the noise from the others sounded as if it was coming from a long way off. I wasn’t scared, I didn’t even think about it, I just laid there on the sandy bottom.

 Suddenly, someone had a hold of my hands again, and was pulling me toward the surface. When my head came out of the water, I saw that it was my  older sister, Midge. She let me go and  started yelling at me, saying “Why didn’t you get up? The water’s not deep here.” “I don’t know,” I told her. Then I realized just how shallow the water was, it only came up to my chest. I felt so foolish! It’s hard to believe now how I almost drowned in only about three to four feet of water. All I would’ve had to do was stand up!

 Midge tried to help me  back to the shore, but I told her I was going to swim back or drown trying. I put my face in the water and started moving my arms like everybody else did. This time, I wasn’t trying to use my feet and legs, I just forgot about them and let them follow my body. Everybody had been telling me how you had to kick your feet to swim, but suddenly I was swimming without even thinking about all that. WOW!!

 Now somebody started yelling, “Look everybody, Phill’s swimmin’!”  “Look at ‘im go!” They all cheered me on and teased about how now they had somebody they could catch easier playing water tag.

 I swam around near the shore, getting used to this great new feeling of ease of movement and the freedom I felt in the water. I found that I could move around so  much easier swimming than I ever did before. It was like being set free after having never been out of some cage!  I loved it, and I wondered why I hadn’t learned how to do this  much sooner. I’d wasted a lot of time listening to other people who were always telling  me that I couldn’t do it!  

 In time I learned to swim very well indeed and eventually proved much harder to “Tag” than they thought I’d be. I could tag with the best of ‘em and swim just as fast and just as far.

 It has been the same way most of my life. People tell me that I can’t do certain things, and I usually prove that I can. My family and friends learned early not to tell me, “You can’t.” That doesn’t work with someone who is determined. Never underestimate anyone who has a head full of  determination.

 My father never wanted to hear the words “I can’t”.  When any of us kids would tell Our father “I can’t” when asked or told to do something, he’d almost always come back with—-

“Can’t never could do anything.”

  I guess I believed what Dad said then, and I still believe it to this day.  I still love to swim whenever I get a chance.