Yesterday we were guests at a party. It was the Golden Wedding Anniversary Party of my very best long-time friend, Jean. She and I have the same middle name and have been friends since 1964. Jean is a first cousin of my first husband, Dave. Jean's husband, Bobby, was best friends with Dave from childhood.
This is the story of Dave and Bobby's friendship.
They met when they were kids. Both families had moved from the South to California in the early 1940's. I think they first met in Riverside, California where they worked (the whole families) in the orchards and fields, harvesting the crops. They attended the same church. During the War (WWII) they moved to the San Diego area where Bobby's dad worked in the aircraft industry and Dave's dad, who was blind, became a buyer and seller of used cars. He could listen to a car running and tell what was wrong with it.
At age twelve, Bobby and Dave spent a lot of time together riding their bikes all over the San Diego area and East County. They would pick up cigarette "ducks" on the sidewalk and smoke them. (They both became addicted. Fortunately, Bobby quit in his thirties, but Dave continued to smoke throughout his life.)
In 1949 when they were fourteen, they had a nearly fatal adventure that they both remembered and talked about the rest of their lives. It started when Bobby found a five by forty-five-foot plywood canoe that had been abandoned, washed up on a beach at the San Diego Bay. Bobby drug it home and stole some tar from a nearby house that was being re-roofed. He heated up the tar and poured it into all the holes he could see around the rim. He made it water proof enough to row on a calm lake. The trouble was that there was no calm lake nearby to row around on.
On a nice Sunday morning in October, Bobby and Dave took off right after church and put the canoe on top of a little wagon, and pulled it out to the Bay. Their plan was to row it across the Bay at about 32nd Street. Bear in mind this was in 1949 long before all the streets and buildings were in the area.
They pushed off the canoe into the water and began to row. When they got out in the middle, they found themselves in deep trouble. The waves coming in kept breaking over the shallow sides of the canoe. Soon they were swamped and would have sunk had they stayed in the boat. They got out and began to swim along side the boat which would stay just barely under the surface as long as only one boy was holding to it. The waves kept breaking on them and if both held to the boat it would go down deeper. So they took turns "resting" and holding to the boat, one boy swimming, the other resting, back and forth.
They struggled for several hours before anyone saw them. Even though it's not normally cold in October in San Diego, the sea water was mighty cold. They soon were so exhausted with their struggle that they were thinking they were not going to survive. Bobby told Dave, "I never have prayed before, but I'm praying now..." And Dave replied, "Me, too."
After they had been in the water about three hours or so, a couple of sailors came out on the pier and noticed them. The sailors were about two to three blocks distance from the boys, but could see they were in trouble. They started trying to flag boats to go and help them, but with no cell phones or megaphones or other means of communication that we take for granted in this day, it was about two and a half more hours until the sailors finally got the word to the Navy Fire Boat, which came out to rescue them.
By then, Bobby told me, he had swallowed so much salt water he was vomiting. When they were taken onto the Navy boat, they were so weak and exhausted and cold, they couldn't walk. The crew had to pull them up and wrap them up.
The sailors transported them to the nearby Naval facility on 32nd Street and put them on cots, wrapped them in warm blankets, offered them hot, black coffee. Bobby was astonished that Dave asked for sugar and cream. Bobby was just glad to be alive and have something hot to drink. Neither of them realized Dave's troubles were not yet finished.
Parents were called.
Bobby's parents came for him and thanked God that he hadn't drowned.
Dave's parents came for him and took him home and gave him a whuppin'.
Now, I believe in spanking, though not necessarily in every situation. I think age fourteen is quite a bit past the age when spanking is appropriate. I feel bad for Dave in that situation, though, because I feel the experience in the water had already "spanked" him. I suppose Dave's parents were not sure their hard-headed son had learned his lesson about how big, cold, and unforgiving the ocean can be. When I first heard this story, I confess I judged Dave's parents harshly for their decision on that particular discipline. That was before I found myself raising Dave's (and my) hard-headed son, though. In raising Jon, I learned that boys can be so hard-headed that they sometimes don't learn lessons just from a bad experience.
What do you think?
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