The Diving Board
The Diving Board was an icon in our childhood. It was not just a board to dive from as the name suggests, it was a location. This location was a secret rendezvous spot only known to myself and my group of friends where we went to smoke, camp out, day dream, tell jokes and stories and basically enjoy life away from home and on occasion swim in the depths of Lake Ontario.
The Diving Board referred to a long thick plank of wood that we had retrieved from the Lake itself. It was rough wood from which we frequently got deep splinters in our tender feet prior to plunging into the lake water. I, as a younger member of the group which also included my older brother and his likewise older friends along with my circle of close confidants met together in the greater group. As a newbie when first introduced to the location and our revered diving board was told unanimously and with enthusiasm that the lake was actually quite shallow at this point.
Why I believed this given that our board was located basically at the entrance to the Welland Ship Canal lock number 1. Here a series of thousands of large rocks, weighing tons, were dumped into the lake in two rows with separation wide enough to allow the passage of the largest lake freighters coming into the canal system. These rocks formed a long entrance way from the lake, providing harbour and sheltered passage for boats heading towards Lake Erie.
Considering our diving board was therefore about half a kilometre measured along the rock wall to the distant shoreline, it would be silly to even consider the thought that the water this far out in the lake would be shallow. Given the encouraging nature of my friends, who knew I could not swim, they enticed me on to the board where I got my first splinter from the rough surface of the wood. The sharp pain and the lasting discomfort did not slow me from taking my first shallow dive into frigid lake Ontario. Having great faith and trust in my brother and friends, I edged to the tip of the board and timidly checked the board for spring. There was none.
I sensed the crowd watching me was fast losing its patience with my slow approach to what should be an action adventure and I knew I would soon have to make the leap into oblivion. I began to shiver as I stood vulnerable and alone perched on the very tip of the board. I don’t know if I was responding to some level of primal fear, or the breeze across the lake was giving me hypothermia. My time of hesitation was near an end. I closed my eyes, plugged my nose and made a mighty leap into the Lake.
My feet made contact with the dark blue water of the lake, momentum and gravity worked to suck me down into the depths. It was not shallow. Panic!! That notion had been a lie. I kept sinking and sinking wondering in my frantic awareness if this was the end. Were I to drown today, in this moment, in this cold deep lake and my mother discovered my stash of playboy magazines in my bedroom, would I actually go to hell. I opened my eyes, there was darkness all around me and lots of bubbles everywhere. It was a surreal assault of madness to the senses. I was still on a trajectory downward.
Then there was a great quiet. The end of times. Looking up, following the bubbles which seemed to be going up, represented hope. I could even see some of the submerged rocks that formed the foundation of the diving board. Calmer now, but not too calm, I thrashed my legs and made frantic movements which I hoped would allow me to follow my bubbles upward towards the light and the air. My lungs with all the frantic activity had developed a sudden craving for oxygen. My ears hurt from the water pressure as I had clearly descended more than any city swimming pool could allow.
At my limits I slowly made for the lightness above me, the sun, and so managed to break the surface some 20 feet from my starting point of the diving board. I was welcomed by a solid wall of laughter as “friends” shouted, “Hey Marty, see not deep at all.” I ignored the taunting jeers from my support group as I was faced with the real and present danger of how to get to the safety of the rocks when for all intents and purposes I could not swim.
I could quickly conclude that no one felt my need, vulnerability and intense fear as this had turned into a spectator sport and I was now the slave facing the lions in the coliseum. Visions of the near drowning of my dog Shadow flashed before my eyes. I likely was owner of the only German Shepherd in the history of dogs that also could not swim. Shadow of course attempted a version of the dog paddle, I mean what were his options, but with a very vertical stroke of his front paws actually causing him to sink. Determined not to replicate the near fate of my stupid dog I stretched my arms in a horizontal fashion while my legs no longer connected in anyway meaningful way to my brain kicked in random directions. The sum total of all this kinetic energy was a slow and ponderous migration towards the rocks and my mocking gangle of friends.
I barely had the strength to pull myself up on the rocks that stood cliff-like in front of me. The wave action from the lake propelled me up allowing me a tentative grasp on solid land and with no help from the crew slowly pulled myself out of the depths. My first reaction was that of relief. I was safe, my mom wouldn’t necessarily find my magazines and I would live another day. The anger, resentment and acid betrayal from my gang quickly broke my consciousness as I screamed at them in true pacifist-Mennonite style to all, “Go just fuck yourselves and rot in hell forever.” My outburst was less than effective as a roar of laughter echoed back at me like a rifle shot in a deep canyon.
And so I began my journey to become a better swimmer and then solemnly vowed I would train my dog Shadow to swim a proper dog paddle as to save him from a fate worse than mine. My mother did not find my magazines for another 7 years. There is a God
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