A story from my dads childhood, enjoy!
This is a very random story, but it sticks clearly in my mind.
This story takes place in a very small community, and by small, at the time of this incident it had roughly 15 to 20 residents. The timeframe is very early 80’s likely 80-82. As a very young person, I very much enjoyed the water, its cool feel on my sun heated skin and the allure of every deep hole, every large rock and every current in the river. I was always amazed, how I could get to enjoy a natural occurrence of the push and pull of the river’s flow, the under currents, the weightlessness of the underwater highway of movement within the waters fluid motion. The river I grew up in, had a peaceful feeling for me, it wanted me in it, and I wanted to be the most natural feeling guest that it had ever had. From the time I was 5 , I could swim across her rapids, high, white capped and swift. I learned to gauge my entry point on one side of the river, to the swift currents and then projected my exit point on her opposite bank based on my skill and strength. It didn’t take me long to realize that the true feel of the river’s currents were realized under the surface and honestly right against the rocky bottom of the deepest channel. I started trying to swim the river from bank to bank by holding my breath as I would dive under the surface. I soon realized that this method only provided me with half to two thirds the breath that I actually needed to cross the river. Keep in mind, this isn’t a large river, 50 – 100 yards wide and maybe 12 feet deep where the swimming hole is. My training was slow, and the swimming season short, my personal goal was to hold my breath for the width of crossing the river under water. I achieved that very quickly, now it was time to improve. After many years of swimming, playing sports, running etc. etc. eventually, I could stay under water while swimming, for approximately 3 minutes and 40 seconds, not a world record or anything, but longer than an untrained person could do it. I feel that my greatest training advancement came from swimming upstream under water while grabbing large rocks to pull myself along under water. The distance I could eventually travel upstream under water was between 150 and 200 yards, I learned how to use the reverse upstream under currents to help my upstream progress. I learned a great many things about that river and many other rivers over the years, from cliff diving the Methow, to cliff diving the Colliding Rivers of Oregon and Little River. I always kept improving my skills, from doing 2 1/2 front flips to 1 1/2 back flips. Why a person might ask would anyone care about having these abilities/skills or care about them? Well, when I was very young, back in my first river swimming/ crossing years, I was at my local swimming hole, Carlton Hole. There I watched a man in his early 30’s take his two little boys and he would take turns on them, grabbing them by the front arm and rear ankle and he would throw them out into the water. They would sink then come up and grab at air with their hands and mouths, then sink again. The useless piece of shit father would eventually go grab each boy by the wrist a drag them back into shore before they drowned, then do it again. I remember watching the adults there on the bank, no one did anything. I thought to myself, if I wasn’t a little kid, I’d stop that fucker. I learned to swim in the river, unlike most will ever know. I have always wished to encounter that fellow or someone like him again. I would love to spend 3 minutes and 40 seconds with him, enjoying the bottom of the Methow River.
Housed and Fed 