The deep end....

For whatever reason, the phrase 'the deep end' has been bouncing around my brain for a few days.  Scary, I know.

My first recollection of the deep end was a place called The JFK Pool.  Most pools have a deep end and a shallow end.  This place had two pools.  A shallow one, and a deep one, strictly for jumping/diving off the boards.  Who knows how deep it was.  Back then I weighed a hunnerd pounds less and couldn't threaten even reaching the bottom now matter how hard I tried.  OK, you're correct, 150 pounds less.

There were several goals.  One, just getting up the damn nerve to even go off the high dive (there were two boards, one regular, and one very high.) Once one had sustained the courage and demonstrated going off the high dive, now, number two, to dive off the high dive.

Wow.  I remember jumping that first time, as my feet hit the water and I went down, down, down... I briefly envisioned my funeral, for I never thought I would go up, up, up.  Flail, as in all out flail with the arms.  Please Lord, give me the breath to make it to the top. Please Lord, let these skinny arms propel me to the top. Please Lord, I promise I'll be good for mom and dad, forever!

Made it.  Whew.

"Allright, now ya gotta dive off it."  You're nuts, I whispered to myself. This was just about the age of noticing girls... so finally, when there was one there that I'd noticed on more than one occasion, I tried.

Three steps, plant both feet on the board, spring up.  Contort body 180 degrees to the diving posiition, cinchy.... BOOM.  All mother of all get out.  MY HEAD!  All the kings horses and all the kings men could never put my skull back together again! Excedrin headache before it was ever invented.

I surfaced. I was just sure my head was seven times larger.  I knew I needed to get to the side before the lifeguard whistled and drew attention to me with "HURRY UP AND GET OUT."  Before Freddy Mercury was ever born I thought to myself "I gotta be cool...relax.. get hip.. and get on my tracks."  You know, pretend like you've been here before, even though your timbers had been shivered.

One and two done, now was the fun stuff. Number three was going off the board, hoping/praying you could make a splash to reach and soak the lifeguard (one of those that 'you'd noticed' before).. however you could do so. Cannonball was the best for the biggest splash.  Sure, it'd make your butt red, but being a ginger, so what, just added to the fray.

Then, one gets their driver's license, does even stupider things - things like finding a cliff with a water hole beneath it. First, you and your buddies spend an hour in the pool of water making sure there are no huge boulders beneath the cliff that would cause immediate dismemberment.

Yes, that was fake news.  Remember?  You're 16, you do stupider things, like, find cliff, jump off, no idea how deep the water is, no idea if Plymouth rock it hidden below. So we did. "You go first Schultze".  Damnit. The double-dog-dare-ya movie hadn't come out yet, but, being 16 and being challenged was impetus enough.

It was much like the initial jump off the high dive but with added degree of difficulty like, you're going down probably 13 feet further, the water is black, you ain't seeing nothing, and, there are wonderful potential critters to eat you on the way up..  fish with teeth, cottonmouths, water moccasins, you name it.  I had been given the instructions "it's cinchy, after you jump, just say the alphabet and you'll hit the water in no time."

So I did. I reached Z and I was still mid-air. NOW WHAT? Just about when I thought of NOW WHAT - KABOOM. I hit.  I surfaced, ultimately, but like the jump off the high dive, there were frantic arm movements downward, coupled with more promises to never again be a pain to my folks, provided I made it to the top safely.

That's about all the deep end water stories I got.  Well, I do remember my nephew, when he was two or three - we were in the backyard pool, we couldn't find him, allofa sudden I see him under the water..he was actually standing upright.. his eyes were open.. he wasn't panicked, but he wasn't moving upward either - eerily just suspended there in water  Whew. Got him.  Got him to the top.  A moment neither of us will ever forget.

I saw that again the other day at the Community Center.  Little kid, mom, family walking by.. mom turns head to talk to an older child, kid walks right into the water (3 feet over his head).. panic.  Pulled out. Fine, but geez Louise, we gotta pay attention with little ones around water.

The other kinda deep end would be 'going off the deep end.' We've all seen it.  What makes one do that?  Demonstrating "you behavior" all your life, then, allofasudden, whammo, one goes off the deep end, it's a trip.

I like to think I'm calm. I do remember though, allowing a certain person to really get on my nerves, several times. One night, after about the seventh flip my lid moment when something was said that really got under my skin - I went off the deep end. In my brain I opened a can of spinach, said to myself "I've had all I can takes and I can't takes no more." I really don't remember what I said, but it was about a two minute rant on every thought I'd had coupled up in my brain for months. Loudly. Accompanied by facial expressions.  Probably arm, hand expressions too.  Close your ears, it was kinda orgasmic.

Anyways, after the rant, another person, a friend/observer to all this..  all I remember is this person saying "Wow!!!! A side to Vic we're never seen!"  Yeah, well, yeah. I went of the deep end.  I hope, pray I ain't the only one to ever do so..  but memory tells me I ain't the Lone Ranger.

Last deep end thought, I promise. Had a professor.  Good professor. Reasonably stern, very rarely smiled, smart, all business, did the job well.  Not perfectly like we woulda liked, but, who's perfect ya know?

Anyways, somewhere between Freshman, sophomore or junior year (I forget which, and college took me six years so there coulda been a couple Fresh/soph/jr years.. doesn't matter)..  this professor went mountain climbing. This professor fell...fell a loooong ways.  Damn near died, truly.  Months and months of rehab, professor was back at it, teaching class.  The body looked the same. It really really resembled the professor, but this person was an extrovert.  Laughing, smiling, having fun, yet still, teaching. It was a human change we'd never seen.  Off the deep end, in a very good way. I liked 'both' professors.

I hope life is going well for you. I hope you don't fall off the deep end, unless that is, you are an introvert and you desire to be an extrovert.. or.. you're of the age you 'notice' a hotty lifeguard your age and you wanna splash them. Of, you're simply perked by the deep end.

Like grandpa said every time he dropped us kids off at the local pool. "Don't get your feet wet."

Love, Victurd