Water, water, everywhere...

 

As alike as we were, when it came to water, as attracted as we both were to it, Cory and I were like day and night, black and white in our relationship to it. A dog in contact with water was sure to stink, whereas Danny was certain to sink. Yeah, I would just plain drown if anything went wrong and that was all there was to it. We both knew it and took it for granted and soberly skirted around it while still trying to have some fun in our mundane Queens Line 1970's and 1980's lives.

I wasn't exactly Mark Spitz. Cory, on the other hand, was in his element in the H20. Few people seemed to be able to call him by his proper name. Uncle Charley called him 'Corby' while Henry Tabbert called him 'Corky'. Neither really seemed wrong coming from their respective source, but 'Corky' was an apt description of his liquid properties; he just bobbed like a cork in the pool. If he wanted to, he could stay submerged for an extended period of time, too. I almost wondered he might have gills hidden behind his ears. Now that he has no hair to speak of I know that's not the case.

If you're reading this, you've probably also read about Cory's date with destiny in the form of his brutal battering at the hands of his big brother, Bill, while all I could do was watch from the other side of the raging spring creek and be glad (ever so glad) it wasn't me. But there were many happier adventures with Cory and me and water neither involving a beating or a drowning. Well, except the time when I was about 13 and I did nearly drown in the Buckwalt pool after Bill suddenly threw me in the deep end. I promptly went right to the bottom and had to be fished out and mouth to mouth resuscitated by the devastatingly beautiful Hope Williams and her deliciously overflowing swimsuit. But that's another story, and I really can't knowledgeably recite much of it to you because, quite frankly, I was totally unconscious for an alarmingly long period of it to all who happened to witness it. 

Come to really think about it, that was about it; Bill was an idiot and I paid for his idiocy by nearly dying. Think, "The Sandlot, Squints, and Wendy", except my experience was 14 years before the movie came out, it wasn't even slightly by any design on my part, I don't think I was quite that geeky, and I was definitely nowhere near that desperate. And Wendy Peffercorn couldn't hold a candle to Hope Williams. No, Hope was one swoopy, Corvette Stingray, Coca-Cola bottle of a girl. She drove a tidy, deep red '68 Mercury Cougar, and... 

What were we talking about? Oh yeah: drowning. 

I remember the whole drowned thing about as much as the time the bull completely crapped on my head during Spring castrating, which is just not at all. Some things are best forgotten and surrendered to the cobwebs of time, but Cory remembers it vividly and will gladly tell it to you. That is, while he's breathlessly holding his stomach with one hand and wiping tears of unrestrained, uproariously joyous laughter away with the other. He's so sympathetic like that. It's an endearing quality of his. 

All I remember is suddenly being above the water, and then, uh... Hope. Coke bottle, blondish, beautiful, bodacious Hope. Nothing in between.

Ahhh... Coming of Age...

I decided then and there, pools have a way of getting you. 

So, Pools 1, Danno 0.

That particular incident proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that I possessed all the buoyancy of a tandem dump truck on ten flat tires and loaded with crushed rock.

Later in life Dave and Tracy Martin always got a kick out of me showing up at the boat launch for an evening cruise already wearing my life jacket in the truck when I got there, but they didn't know the sinker they were dealing with. You know the way a rocket goes up? Well... 

Anyway, going out on a water adventure always had the reminder swimming (Thaat's funny raht thar. I don't care who ya are: that's funny!) around in our heads: "Danny gets in over his head/Danny's dead". As simple as that. Now, anyone with any sense whatsoever would know so much better that, if you're that far out of your element in a certain element, you better darn sure stay out of that element. But, nah, not us. So, we were either brave or stupid in our Waterworld pursuit. I lean pretty strongly towards the latter. 

Now, for all we liked to mess around water, impromptu rafting was the thing. Yep, rafting was where it was at for us in those days when the tranquil creek behind Cory's place became a brown, roiling, boiling, Raging River of Death every Spring runoff. No proper gear; nothing. Not even waterwings for yours truly. Yeah: that level of stoopid. To this very day I just can't believe I actually managed to survive my own childhood as I dished it up upon myself. Or, in a more forthright evaluation: as we did. It defies all logic. Suffice it to say the utterly pedestrian lifestyle I live now does not in any way shape or form resemble that of my youth. 

The Bowes Backplace had a nice pond. Not nice for swimming (or sinking), but nice to skip stones on, sail boats on, or throw mud clods at unsuspecting frogs just sitting there on the bank minding their own mindless business, or floating googly-eyed in the water staying cool and hydrated. It was great for playing hockey on in the winter, too, which was pretty much certain death for me if we miscalculated the integrity of the ice. It'd be a bad day for Corby... I mean Corky... I mean Cory, too, because he'd have a pretty frozen walk back home, and a pretty badly burnt butt from the paddling he'd get after telling our folks, "Danny's at the bottom of the Backplace pond and there's no bubbles coming up any more". 

So we were pretty careful. Well, I mean, to a point. Ya gotta have some fun in life, y'know. 

Now, if something bad did happen, Cory would have tried his darnedest to save me. That is in no doubt whatsoever. Some things are just a fact without ever actually happening and that is one of them. The only thing is, I would have shot to the bottom so quick he wouldn't have been able to grab me and I would have found the only mine test hole or catfish cave down there to boot. 

There was a dandy lake across the road and over the hill at Claude Oattes' place, that fed the Backplace pond through a creek, but we stayed clear of it, and I think it was more out of genuine respect for the wonderful neighbour Claude was than for any actual respect for ourselves. I have never thought it was a bad thing that we didn't avail ourselves of that body of water because there would be a weathered marker beside it now and Sharon wouldn't have the challenges in life that she must face and triumph over on a daily basis. 

Before I forget about it, fishing was a thing with Cory and I, too. That was generally an ever so much safer bet for me than rafting. Not that we were very good at it, mind you, but it was a pursuit and pastime nonetheless. Red Fisher and Scuttlebutt Lodge we sure weren't. We did sort of pride ourselves on our tackle boxes, but the lures in them were kinda like a Ferrari in a basement; nice to look at but not really all that much good for anything beyond that. We definitely collected more luresesses than fishesses. We certainly would never have made the papers with our catches. And we couldn't have kept the smallest house cat fed with them either. I have to begrudgingly admit Cory was better at it than I was. Not that that is saying a whole lot. There's no 40 pound muskies on either of our walls. The biggest fish we ever caught was a pike at Garden Lake. Cory snagged it. We thought it was lake weed at first. The hook likely just slid into its drooping mouth while it was snoozing away the late afternoon. It was maybe two and a half pounds and it just lay on its side for the leisurely ride to the dock regarding us in complete idle boredom with its up eye while Cory reeled it in to us. Kinda lackluster if you ask me. A bit of an anticlimax after the bite. Well, distracted gumming. I think we ate him just to get back at him for not putting up a better show and fight. We probably cooked him first. I believe Cory would have done better with flippers and a mask and just grabbed the stupid slippery slimy things with his hands instead of bothering with a rod and reel. We don't have any 'The Big One That Got Away!' stories. We never got even close to that and you wouldn't believe us now anyway. 

For all the scrapes we ever got into I am most amazed that I lived through the ones that involved water. 

Even Corby had his share of misfortune in those days. One time in the McClure semi-above ground pool, the porpoise that was him was seahorsing around, and he decided to do an underwater somersault. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Or unusual about it. It was just the place he chose to come up from it. That happened to be right under the pool ladder which went up 5 or 6 steps from the ground outside, over the wall of the pool, and down a couple of steps further to the bottom inside. This was the late 1970's; a time when not everything was made out of rounded everywhere plastic and red text warning you to take the pizza out of the box before eating. No, that pool ladder was made out of stamped steel. The steel treads did roll over round, smooth and safe for bare skin. Well, from the top down, that is. Not so much from the bottom up. No, that way there was just hard, sharp, sheered off steel edges. Cory collided with a tread on the way up. There was a muffled little thud accompanied by a visible jostling of the ladder. There was a moment or two of nothing. Then there was blood. Yeah, quite a bit of it. It came up in a round, steadily spreading pool from down below. Then there was Cory. Completely unlike me, Corky always came up. This time he came up with a gash across his nose. It was gushing a healthy outpouring of bright, shiny red. Yeah, gushing was the word. But did he cry? No, not him. Not a sound. Nuthin'. 

Ok, I'm sorry: That was a fib. More to the point it would be a flat out, bald faced lie if I don't take the time to stop to correct it. So I will. In the spirit of truth and disclosure, only, y'understand.

To be perfectly honest he threw back his head and exercised those lungs that helped keep him underwater for so long into the open air and let loose for a good minute or two. Yeah, leaning pretty heavy on the "two". If you had been there, the distinct impression that he wasn't happy would have slowly crept over you as he howled his displeasure at passing birds. And jetliners. If Cory sang like he bawled, he would have been the next Pavarotti. I thought it was a little overly dramatic myself, but, to his credit, it wasn't me standing there bleeding like a stuck pig and he did move the whole ladder with only his nose. For such a small schnoz it sure had an ample supply of blood. 

If a passing bird had done to him in that moment what that bull had done to me I'd have a dandy story to tell. 

So, it was into the fambilly stayshun wagon and off to the Pembroke Civic Hospital to get stitched up and he likely got fries and a milkshake out of the deal, too. And probably a bag of gummy bears for the trip home. Cory introduced me to the joy of gummy bears, by the way. They became a lifelong love affair of mine. I can't eat a gummy anything without thinking of his nose. 

Thaaat didn't come out quite right... 

Anyway, he wasn't too much the worse for wear from the bonker on his honker when he got back. Just a little black thread sticking out betwixt his eyes. He's still got a streak across his beak to this day to attest to that afternoon. Good times. 

So, Pools 1, Corky 0. 

Besides the pool, the McClure yard always had lots of nice flowers around the trees, on the porch, and at the walkway. I liked to help Cory's Mom plant them. Cory always thought that was extra nice of me to help her out like that. It wasn't, really. She always wore a tube top planting flowers.  

Anyway... 

That pool left its mark on me, too. It actually happened as I was leaving. I was 40 or 50 feet away and it reached out and bit me. Pretty much the exact same place on the driveway as where I told you in an earlier reminisce I passed out from sheer pee-yerself-empty terror on Halloween night when I was about three. 

For whatever reason, I had my sister's 5 speed bike over at the pool. As I got on it to ride home it pulled its favorite trick. It had the nasty habit of jumping out of gear without warning. Forgetting all about it, I did that one foot on the pedal pushoff thing as I swung my other leg over the saddle. It specifically chose that exact, precise juncture in all of the history of mankind to jump out of gear. The sudden, freewheeling jolt somehow caused my bare big toe and part of my bare foot to go through the rotary chain guard and strike the apex of the frame as the pedal and chain guard continued around past it with all my weight on it. Without an x-ray and a medical degree of some sort, I can't tell you exactly what the damage was, but it was very bloody, beyond painful, and resulted in a deformed foot to this very day. Pools have their way of getting you, one way or another. If they can't get you directly, they'll conspire with something else to get the job done. But I didn't get fries or a shake er nuthin' out of it. Just a lifelong messed up foot. That stupid bike got sumpthin' out of it, though, lemme tell ya. It got a big frickin' rock slammed down on it from high above my head right on that stupid bloodied chain guard. Neither of us was ever quite the same after that day. 

Therefore, Pools: 2, Danny: 0. 

And, yes, the bike did it, but I hold it against the pool. The bike was only the hitman. The pool wrote the contract.

Cory always loved doing a running leap into the water. It was like watching Free Willy. One time, Cory came barreling down the lawn from the house, intent on ending up as far into the other side of the pool as he could. He always made it before. Not that time. He banana peel slipped on the wet grass from the backwash of the pool filter and crashed full tilt into the pool wall. No swim that day. 

Hence, Pools: 2, Corby: 0. 

Bill did the exact same thing, except he was taller, so he crashed into the pool wall then tumbled over it into the water with a hard face flop. 

Pools: 1, Bill: 0. 

Are you beginning to see where I form my opinion from? 

Upon a little honest consideration it does kind of lend support to Cory's summation of me as being "born grumpy". I think that was a bit of a grumpy thing to say itself. I tend to think of myself more as 'optimistically challenged'. 

While Cory was apt to express his dissatisfaction of a particular situation in a (rather embarrassing, I must say) fit of bawling, I tended to let out mine in a fit of anger. That anger usually coincided with a vigorous and spirited throwing of whatever was handy. Like the rock at my sister's stupid bike. There are, to this day, a fair and assorted number of wrenches and screwdrivers distributed in the field between where the Bowes yard was and the MacKay farm. They are in a large, fan-shaped arc from where I would have thrown them from the yard during a repair that wasn't going well. That was in my young adult years. Well, my younger adult years. OK: whatever years I was on the farm. I did do my best not to throw a part that I couldn't replace. I had a heck of an arm, even if I do say so myself, and once it was out there at the edge of my limit it wasn't going to be found again. One time I was degreasing a tractor engine in the yard and got a stinging, blinding back-blast of degreaser right in both eyes. I knew where my favorite drink stein was on the hood. Growling in pain, I snatched it and furiously drilled it at the garage, 40 feet away. I may have known where my glass was but I didn't know where my Dad was. He happened to be walking back in from the barnyard. As I said, I had a heck of an arm and that big stein whizzed past his head at likely 80 miles per hour and smashed into a kazillyun pieces against the back wall of the garage after traveling all the way through it without hitting anything. That earned me a pretty vigorous tongue lashing. Not an overly, particularly standout memorable one, mind you, because there were plenty of them, given my somewhat passionate and impulsive nature, but a good one nonetheless. How Dad lived to be almost 98 with the accumulative strain I put upon him all those years is indeed a testament to the inherent durability in the design of a Scotsman. 

But this is about Cory and his faults, not just mine. Ok, our's. 

We had other ways of getting hurt, too. We didn't need water for that. Cory and I had our own game of lawn darts. Remember those? Oh, they were fun things to mess with. They got outlawed in the USA for being 'too dangerous'. We thought the plain ol' regular lawn dart game wuz fer sissies. That got boring in a hurry. A rule of thumb to remember for a rewarding life is no risk is no challenge. So, playing by the rules printed on the box was no good. It was all about safety and respect for your competitors and the equipment and stuff. We likely burnt the box to blow up aerosol cans. We decided to make the game properly interesting. A Cory and Dan version. Our version of anything tended to be stripped down and raw and at least somewhat - if not inherently - dangerous, and lawn darts were no different. We only needed one hoop for our game. We laid it on the ground, and stood back to back inside it, duel style. In an underhanded swing, we would throw a dart straight up as high as we possibly could. What goes up must come down. Don't take yer eye off the birdie... Last one to leave the hoop won that round. Now it was fun!

I can most assuredly say the Cory and Dan version of the game of lawn darts was never boring. Like Russian Roulette but with an emphasis much more on physicality than sheer luck. Once Cory had a dart go right through his foot. It hurt like heck, but he definitely won that round. If that had been his head we'd probably be discussing him here in the past tense. Standing with our backs to and against each other it was kind of hard to keep tabs on the other guy when it was far more important to keep your eyes on that big earthbound dart with a business end you absolutely did not want to tangle with. The risk of a heavy, finned projectile penetrating your skull, only stopping with a resounding thump when it sank to the hilt made it conversely the target of our undivided attention, not the other guy. The only thing we really had to go by in the way of monitoring each other was the feeling of the other one pushing off our back to vacate before he got skewered. We argued a lot about the outcomes of games, but we were both fair when proper evidence was presented, and neither of us were cheaters. Arguing this time, however, was pointless; there was no contesting the sight of him energetically hopping around with a big bright coloured dart sticking out of his flipper. That was conclusive. I had no choice but to concede him a point. He was indisputably still there when that dart came back down. That game ended on that round, too, for whatever reason.

No pain, no gain. I gained a story to write and Corby gained a scar to remember. Fortunately, it never came to us to play that game on a raft in the middle of a pond.

More to come when I get time and they come up with a cure for whatever's wrong with me upstairs.