Dad's Long Swim

When I was a young boy, about eight years old, my family and I went on a holiday to the beach in the Florida Panhandle. As I was very young, I did not know how to swim at the time. Although I did not know how to swim, I definitely enjoyed the beach. There were many things there besides the ocean.

“What else is there besides the ocean?” you might ask. The beach is there, of course. Additionally, there are very many women and girls. I was never uninterested in girls. Rather, you could say I have always liked the fairer sex. I am confident a girl my age at the time would have noticed the men and boys instead. But I am not a girl, so I noticed the females. Another, and apparently very popular, thing on the beach is the beach salesman. The salesman sold all kinds of things connected with a summer day along the ocean.

As it happened, when my family arrived at the beach town, a new Styrofoam company was selling the perfect item to use at a beach. At least, the company said it was the perfect item. Styrofoam is a very light plastic used to make many things, such as drink coolers and drink holders to keep them safe. Because it is light, it floats on water easily. The perfect item, then, for the new company was a child’s surfboard.

You can no doubt imagine how I reacted to the advertisement. I was a child. I was at the beach. And right next to the beach was the ocean. The advertisements for the new company must have been designed for me. They even showed a young boy surrounded by beautiful girls. In reality, they showed two young boys, one of whom was not surrounded by girls. The one with the girls adoring him had the company’s surfboard in his hands.

You will remember that I did not know how to swim at that time. Yet I still enjoyed ...

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... the beach. When Dad caught up to me, he was very tired and very relieved. I bravely told him that he could rest on the board and I would swim back. We both knew that was impossible because I did not magically learn to swim while asleep. Dad simply told me to hold onto the board while he pushed it back.

All the way back to the beach, I wondered what my parents would do about my silly, dangerous stunt. As we got closer to the beach, I saw my mother standing there watching Dad and me. She grabbed me and would not let me walk anywhere for the rest of the day without holding her hand.

So I ended up the day like I started it: a little boy who only wanted to be cool. I think, though, there was a cool person on the beach that day. The cool person was not a surfer and he did not have a lot of girls around him. The coolest person is the one who saved me, my hero, my father.