This evening we talked of things we did as kids. Something in the conversation got me to remembering a time when I was about eight and my family was out on Puget Sound in our old Chris-Craft cabin cruiser for one of our weekend wanderings through the waterways. We’d stopped at some little cove and my younger brother and I had rowed in the dinghy to play on the beach. The boat stayed anchored a little ways away, and we just played, until the tide started changing and it was time to return to the boat.
I remember rowing the boat with all my eight-year-old strength and courage, trying to be stronger than the tide that was pushing us in. I remember looking over the edge of the boat and seeing not too far below us the sea bottom, and, starfish. And I remember freaking out when I couldn’t get my brother and me any closer to the boat our parents were standing in. My father was yelling instructions and encouragement across the gap between us.
Today I don’t know how far it really was, that gap. But that day it seemed like 100s of yards and worse, that there was no way for my parents to come and rescue me. Today, I do know that my dad could have dove in and come to our aid. But he didn’t; he made me work on through in my terror and get my brother and me to the boat.
I haven’t saved many tangible objects from my childhood. A little diary, some jewelry that I gave my mother. But I do have these memories.
