65% of drowning incidents occur in pools owned by the child’s family.
I could see the blurry multi-colored figures dancing in slow motion. It was strange how cool the water felt on my eyes, until they started burning. The water rushed over my tongue as I attempted to breathe. The coughing and crying were not nearly as important as the sheer terror in my heart as my father pulled me from the pool. His coarse laugh and his banging on my back added to the horror. Both arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, while water sprayed down his back. Even after the water was out, I continued to cry in fear of being thrown back into the pool.
I guess I look back at my first time “swimming” as a common experience for most children. And like other children, I got back in the pool. My father suspected that with such a traumatic first experience I would probably become an Olympic swimmer. That was hardly a likely scenario. Oh, I took swimming lessons and I was given the opportunity to join the swim team when I reached the required age. It just never interested me. Besides, I was never really that good a swimmer because of my size. I’m positive there would have been an unbearable amount of ridicule focused on me in a Speedo. So, I avoided the situation altogether.
Maybe that first traumatic experience had an adverse effect, maybe it didn’t. Maybe, it was the stories. My neighborhood had its fair share of storytellers. I think the best one I ever heard was when I was eight. I think it was Nick Francis, or maybe Jerry Nichols, that told me about the Stevenson’s.
The Stevenson’s were the old couple that lived at the turn in 84th and Tremont. Most of the kids in the neighborhood stayed away from their house, not because we thought old people were creepy, but because we didn’t really have much in common with a pair of ninety year-olds. They kept to themselves, and we kept to ourselves. That is with the exception of the story.
The Stevenson’s had two children, Eric and Stephanie. When they were eight and five, respectively, Mr. Stevenson had decided to buy a pool. The very next summer, they say, Eric and Stephanie started telling Mrs. Stevenson that they had a new friend that liked to come over and swim with them every once in awhile. Mrs. Stevenson thought nothing of it, and shooed the kids out the door to play.
After a time, Mrs. Stevenson started to wonder why the kids were so quiet. She ran to the front door to see if they were in the yard playing. They were nowhere to be seen. Immediately her mind started to race. She had dismissed the children’s story about their new friend, but what if it was true? What if someone was playing and swimming with the kids while she wasn’t looking? Thoughts of kidnapping, molestation, and mutilation filled her mind. She raced through the house crying hysterically snatching the phone from its cradle frantically dialing. She ran to the backdoor. Right next to one another, Eric and Stephanie floated face down in the family pool. After that, Mr. Stevenson filled in the pool and turned it into a garden for Mrs. Stevenson where she spent the vast majority of her afternoons talking to her plants… her children.