WRITE ME A POEM, BABY

Blog number sixty-two                                      21 Nov 2006
I got this e-mail from my nephew after he read my blog entry about almost drowning.

"I almost drowned (maybe in the same pit – north of Graettinger).  A friend of my brother pulled me out.  I was not scared and didn’t get short of air and swear that I was close to being able to absorb oxygen from the water through my skin.  I remember being a little pissed in later years that he pulled me out.  I could never duplicate the circumstances or the sensation.  I was very young at the time.  As I got older it still stuck with me that maybe just maybe I was on the edge of a great discovery.  The older I got the more I dismissed it as foolishness.  Humans can’t take air through the skin or get nourishment through breathing food cooking. (another idea I swear would work)"

A number of years ago my diving buddy told me that he once ran out of air underwater and had to take a breath of water.  He asked me how this could be and I had to tell him I didn't know.  I don't really think he expected me to have an answer, but the event puzzled him so much that he felt he had to at least try to find out how such a thing could be.

After reading the same entry where I mentioned not being afraid until after I had time to think about almost drowning, my nephew wrote the following,

"I do know fear of stuff is learned.  I learned it from my Mom.  One time I got hit in the head by an ink bottle my cousin and I were throwing into the tree to make the helicopters come down.  It gashed my head pretty good.  We thought it was kind of cool with the blood running down my head.  As with all cool things I wanted to show dad.  He was in the house so I went in and AHHHHHHHHH!!!  MOM FREAKED OUT AND STARTED AHHHHHHHHH!!!  YA KNOW . 

Now I was real confused and didn’t know if I was going to get an ass whippin’ or what so I just started tocry.  My cousin got chewed out (he was older and I found out he should have know better) and I was pampered.  Very, very confusing but I remembered that.  Mom scared the shit out of me that day and I learned to be afraid when blood appeared. 

I used to be afraid to fight.  I was a maniac if I got in one.  I thought it was because I didn’t want to get hurt.  I later found out the embarrassment of losing was what I feared.  I just quit getting into fights.  If I did get into a fight, and it was only maybe two fights after that, it was to protect myself from someone who wouldn’t leave me alone.