Friends Don't Let Friends Perform Sailor Dives Into 4 Feet of Water

Alright . . . Since yesterday’s Evan story was so popular I am going to treat you to another. Evan loves boats. He is particularly fond of kayaks, squirt boats, and C1’s. For those unfamiliar with a C1: picture kneeling like the Land O’ Lakes Butter, Native American squaw brand icon and then picture someone compressing your thighs until your heels disappear into the back of your lower legs. Got it so far? Now, paddle around like that with a goofy smile on your face through jagged rocks, white water rapids and near freezing air and water temperatures while the circulation completely ceases to your lower extremities and that’s Evan’s idea of heaven.

He is a master craftsman, especially in wood. He once bought me a set of traditional Japanese, hollow ground wood chisels. I have lost my marriage, my immediate contact with my children, my home, my career and what passed for self respect but I still have those chisels. I build guitars among other amusements. Evan builds wooden boats and occasionally prostitutes himself and repairs fiberglass hulls. He can hand plane a board over twenty feet long which will perfectly sit along the line of the bucks he has intended for it. He marvels at my skills. I have none in contrast to his. Both of us are fanatical in our devotion to the “old ways.” The shipwright is all but gone but there is still my friend Evan to prevent its demise. I love the sea but he would live on it if he could. Where I have a passing interest he has a devotion that borders on unrequited love.

As a consequence of our tireless longings to do beautiful work with our hands we had worked on many projects, together. We still spend a lot of our conversations detailing our latest wish lists for projects. I have a tendency to not suffer such distractions as concerns for my safety which makes the project ever so much more interesting. For Evan, it makes the projects ever so much messier when he’s preparing bandages and tourniquets for me. There was a particular incident when he rolled up in front of my house in a 1965 Mustang Coupe. We were in our mid-twenties and so although the Mustang was just fine as it came from the factory, obviously we could improve it. Work began. I sketched out and then completed the casting dies for the new aluminum valve covers. We got the green sand for the casting molds and Evan finished those after I rechecked my draft angle calculations, checked wind speeds, etc. etc. . . . over-analyzed everything as usual. Those valve covers were so good we just couldn’t wait to start tearing down the engine and rebuild it.

Well, I couldn’t wait.

I started wrenching on all of the fasteners and got down to a few head bolts that were a little stubborn after roughly twenty years of high engine heat. “Wait,” said Evan., “Rather than do something stupid why don’t I just go get something like WD-40 to free those seized studs.” “Eh?. Something stupid? Nonsense,” said I with my usual pluck and assurance, “I’ll just slide this length of pipe over the end of the ratchet to increase the fulcrum and my leverage [grunt, strain, minor internal bleeding . . .] and . . .” CRACK!!!

As I write this, I’m looking at the scar on my left thumb. I had both hands clenched around that pipe and put everything I had behind it. In a demonstration of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, when that bolt loosened, there was barely any resistance to the force I had exerted. Not only had the length of pipe increased my leverage but it also increased the mass. Mass multiplied times acceleration equals force (F=ma). It certainly does . . . Picture the position a thumb is in when making a fist and then picture that bent knuckle making contact with a sharp corner on a cast iron chunk of engine. I split that puppy wide and deep. There was some concern the wound might never actually close, since it could not be stitched and I had to rely on butterfly bandages as my only recourse.

This all occurred during Evan’s search for the solvent so imagine the look on his face when he returned to find spurting blood and me trying to stem the tide with an oily rag. In jubilation I proclaimed, “Got that bolt loose . . . “

But that story was just the setup for the real story. Because each of us was so convinced that our personal interests were superior sources of enjoyment over the other one’s hobbies and ambitions we were always trying to provide opportunities for each to experience the real deal. Evan’s turn came at the community college swimming pool. I am an excellent swimmer. I had been trained as a life guard at only twelve years of age. I know pool safety. No. Really – why are you smirking like that? I do! But, Evan is the water baby. He was teaching me some techniques used by sailors and among those was the Sailor Dive. The Sailor Dive, as successfully demonstrated to me by Evan, looks like a normal dive except that instead of extending your arms over your head and pointing your hands to form a sort of spear with your entire body you instead dive with your arms at attention against your sides. (As in the T-Shirt graphic for this post). “I can do that,’ I said, and off I went.

The Reason I Grew a Beard
The guy famous for calculating the volume of a gnat’s anus didn’t even consider that he was six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Evan. Springing gleefully into oblivion and only four feet of water when you are six feet, two inches tall presents difficulties. It also presents a brilliant display of intense red flashes across your entire field of vision. My chin, nose and forehead all made contact with the bottom of the pool at the same time. As my face detached from the grout and tile I paused to assess, “Hmmm. Not good.” I had recently learned of the means to kill a human being by shoving their nose into their brain. I figured I had just succeeded in testing that knowledge. The expiration was supposed to take no more than thirty seconds so I stood up in the pool and counted to thirty-six and determined it was likely I would live. It was also good that I had not forgotten any numbers along the way; two good signs. I turned to face Evan who was ghostly pale. “That was a sickening thud.” I asked him what was wrong. “You’re bleeding.” “Oh, Yeah . . . I know” I said calmly. Evan wasn’t so calm, “NO. Y-O-U A-R-E Bleeeee-DING!?!” Now, you medically inclined know that there are so many willing capillaries and such in the skin of the face that love to bleed. Mix that with a lot of water and it looks like hemorrhaging. So, I trotted off to the showers to rinse off and then get a look-see in the mirror for myself.

In the shower I could not figure out why as I ran the jet of water across the bridge of my nose that blood poured from my nostrils. When I got to the mirror I understood. The reason I had not died was because the cartilage in my nose had come out rather than gone in. It was sticking out of the top of my nose just below my eyebrows. The gouge in the flesh of the nose around the protruding, white, rubbery stuff was purple, and blue, and red. I spread and pulled up on the wound, the guy standing nearby watching me fainted, and the cartilage popped back inside my nose. All better.

The tile used to cover the swimming pool had left a reverse imprint in my face. My chin and forehead had what I was later told is called “Swimmer’s Cross” by competitive swimmers that dive too deep and scrape bottom. I headed out to locate Evan and then went to file an accident report. (I told you I was a trained life guard) I was the picture of loveliness with my red, criss-crossed gouges, punctured nose, and purple bruises under my eyes as I assured Evan that I was just fine. The staff turned out to be two women the same ages as Evan and myself. I do not think that “life guardettes” is the technical term but this was pre-Baywatch. The Blonde took immediate compassion on me and her nurturing, Florence Nightingale, genes kicked into overdrive. The Brunette must have been interrupted from her snack of lemons and persimmons and did not care for me - at all. As the rescuing angel began to ask me questions from the report form and apply bandages to my wounds the other stood rigidly with arms crossed and her weight cocked to one hip tracing the inside of her lips with her tongue. This was a marriage made in heaven for both of us. Guardette Sweet asked what happened and as I attempted to answer, Evan interjected, “Dummy hurt himself while performing stupid tricks at pool.” I laughed as did Evan and even Guardette Sour but Guardette Sweet shot Evan a look of death such as I have never seen. Several outer layers of his skin melted away . . . maybe I’m exaggerating . . . but, not by much. Evan continued to make insulting pokes at me to the delight of Guardette Sour and the glares of Guaredette Sweet and a good time was had by all. If Evan and I hadn’t been such morons we would have asked those two lovely ladies out. Ce la vie.

What did I learn from that experience?

1. Friends will be there to put the proper spin on your death.
2. Absolutely nothing about proper conduct around a swimming pool.
3. Practically nothing about my own mortality.
4. A woman’s attention makes everything all better.
   

A sidebar would be that when I went back to work I wanted to make the cuts and gouges less hideous for my co-workers. I found that by going for the humorous angle I learned something about the people around me. I used Snoopy and Woodstock comic strip bandages on my face. I thought that it would get a chuckle and the girls would find it cute. Nope. I found out the hidden feelings of the women I worked with by wearing those stupid things. The ones that secretly liked me were furious when they saw me wearing those! Who knew that something so simple could flush them out of hiding??! That was the event that defined my forever screwing with people’s heads. So, I guess you could say that dive knocked some sense into me.