“I am Haunted by Water” *

 I am defined by water, exalted by it. I can’t imagine

life without it.  I come from water and return to it whenever I can, daily, seasonally, yearly, constantly.  I was born on an Island, surrounded by water.  A Long Island near The City island.  My grandfather and father were in Public Water Works.  My first job was painting fire hydrants for my dad.  Public Water Works.  My favorite job was being a lifeguard.  My first sport was swimming.  My first friend was a high diver.  My first love was a swimmer, warm, smooth and wet. My first broken arm required 9 casts since I kept jumping in the water with it on.  Lucky my uncle was my orthopedic.  My first major was Fluid Mechanics.  My first occupation was hydrology and hydraulics - surface water - repairing dams and rivers in the desert.  My retirement is spent partially on the central west coast where the water is clean, blue and cold and I can watch it every day even if I don’t go in much anymore.  Water encompasses and embodies me.  It is who I am.  You have to be something. 

My first recollection was of my dad taking me out in the ocean on his shoulders at Jones Beach and then launching me on a wave to ride towards the shore.  I must have been  6 or 8 and fearless.  The feeling of the ocean pitching me forward quickly, all the way to the beach was incomprehensible. It felt alive, powerful and a little menacing.  Dad showed me how to catch waves myself, looking for sets with size and shape and catching an early one before there was too much water on the beach.  It opened up a new independent world to me, similar to learning to cross the street or tie my own shoes.  With his supervision, I moved out into deeper water to catch better waves, without losing my toehold of the seafloor that kept me from washing out to sea with the mysterious Under Toad.  Emboldened, I dropped into a big one but I was late and inside and It flipped me up the curl and crashed me down to the floor and sat on my chest for what felt like eternity.  Sputtering to the surface eventually and crying for my mother, I raced to the shore but found my dad there laughing and smiling incongruously.  WTF I said with my limited lexicon as he shook a mound of sand out of my little red surf shorts.  He asked me how I liked the ‘washing machine’ and I knew instantly what he meant.  He said next time drop my head and hands and go out the back door.  I asked him if there was anything else I needed to know and he just said yes.  I wasn’t sure what that meant but would figure it out after a PBJ sandwich, a Coke and the half-hour mandatory rest that seemed to be the law of the beach. 

Conversely, I was swimming with my stepdaughter in big surf one day and she got caught in a riptide.  She wasn’t a strong swimmer, and I didn’t want her to be alone, so I followed her out.  She was besides herself due to the lack of control and distance building from the shore.  I calmed her down as we tread water and asked her calmly what she thought we should do.  She wanted to swim to an adjacent jetty and climb out.  We looked at the jetty and saw big waves cashing violently on it so that was out of the question.  I told her it was a rip current that would eventually dissipate and let us go in deeper water, but we couldn’t fight it. 

The lifeguards looked oblivious so I told her to swim parallel to the beach with me until we could find an inbound current.  We did this for a while with me asking her periodically if she was all right, and she would say yes, until she didn’t and said she was struggling and going down in the turbulent waves.  I told her swimming is 90% relaxing and calm breathing and I had her float on her back with her hands on my shoulders while I swam slowly.  She laid her head back and breathed rhythmically, trying to relax and recover.  Finally, we felt a current flowing towards the beach, and we turned and rode the waves in.  As we walked from the water a lifeguard ran over and asked if we were ok. I said YES and she said NO but we walked back to our blanket for some tuna sandwiches, a beer and the mandatory half hour nap.  After a while I asked her if she wanted to get back on the horse and go for a swim.  She said NO, never again. 

 

After freshman year of high school, I reported to our summer swim Club on the Great South Bay for our first practice in our new, fast, saltwater pool.  After practice I walked past the women’s locker room on the canal and out swung my old fiend Gina Sweeny in a bright yellow homemade polka dot bikini.  I didn’t recognize her out of her one-piece racing suit and she swung her hips that could sink ships and brand knew tips, way up firm and high, like most young women know how to do, instinctually, like holding a baby on their hip.  I had been in a carpool with Gina for years and knew she was crazy and funny, the best swimmer in the Club and exactly 10 months younger than me, when that was import and in swimming and life.  Swimmers are not like racehorses, all born on Jan 1.  This woman Regina was all new to me and I was coming of the age where I would appreciate it. Va va va boom.  Wasting no time, for if you snooze you lose, I asked her to go for a swim, and we spent the rest of the day playing water ballet and swimming thru each other’s legs blowing bubbles and laughing innocently.  We would spend the next four years together swimming and sailing and going back behind the boats to smooch.  I moved away from Gina to landlocked Indiana and worse yet, Utah.  All the kids still swim and sing:

 

Gina Sweeny had a ten-foot weenie,

And she showed it to the guy next door.

He thought it was a snake,

And wrapped it with a rake,

Now it’s only five foot four.

 

I also had a great friend, appropriately named Willie Hooper, who was a great swimmer and diver, football, basketball and baseball player.  Not William or Bill or Will but Willie.  He was also funny as snot.  We would bounce on the high diving boards all day long, doing clown dives and serious dives in our banana hammock Speedos, but not knowing the difference between the two.  One day we decided to skip swim practice and smoke surreptitiously in the white rocking chairs on the screen porch, incognito.  It was a blast watching the others work until big coach Reese snuck up behind us and banged our heads together and made us swim a double practice that day. 

When Willie wore a Dungaree Jacket with his Varsity A letter from Amityville High School on it, my dad asked him what the A was for Willie looked down at the letter, perplexed for the moment, and then smiled and said, ‘A is for Outstanding’.  Not the sharpest tool in the shed but he was an outstanding guy with a big heart.

Despite him smoking 2 packs a day at age 12, my only goal was to beat him in the breast-stroke and in our last race we tied for third.  When we both sauntered up to the podium the coach was confused about what to do with the one ribbon.  Willie took it and ripped it in half and gave me the top part with a grin. He lost the Club Swimmer of the Year that summer by one half a point, but he didn’t care because Gina won it instead and we both loved Gina.  She accepted the trophy that winter in a homemade yellow polka-dot dress with Willie, in a sporty white turtleneck, at her side.  ‘I don’t recognize you with your clothes on’,’ we liked to say in the winter.

One day I came home from a two-week wrestling camp and found him in the Clubhouse smooching with Gina.  I asked him what was going on and he said he was making out with my girlfriend.  I said OK but did they want to go swimming when they were done.  We all got up and swam for the rest of the day and summer like nothing had ever happened. 

Years later the three of us were drinking by candlelight at the Club on the night of the NYC blackout.  We went home to his house, across from the Amityville Horror house so we could ring their bell and run like old times, and Willie could show us his new motorcycle.   We all hopped on it to make believe we were riding.  Of course, we lost our balance and fell to the floor of the garage, becoming harmlessly pinned under the bike and laughing hysterically.  Willie’s dad came out to ask what we thought we were doing and Willie chortled that we were just going for a ride.  We were locked in the garage for the rest of the night, but we didn’t really mind.  Willie burned out young, at 42, from lung cancer but we still swim and sing:

 

Every party has a pooper,

That’s why we invited you,

party pooper, Willie Hooper.

 

*Norman McLean