Why I never learned to swim

I don’t remember the trauma I experienced nearly 70 years ago. And yet, I can recall it as if it had happened yesterday.

I was two, four years younger than my older brother. We lived on a channel that connected two glacial lakes southwest of Akron, Ohio. Our father was supposed to be watching us while our mother was away for a while. Dad being Dad, he was preoccupied. I still recall the disdain and anger that our usually gentile mother expressed toward our father as this family story was told and retold over the years.

It was this dramatic retelling that etched a lifetime of fear of water into my psyche. Consequently, I never learned to swim. Shoot, I even take showers just to stay safe. It is my only logical explanation of this unfounded, yet realistic phobia.

It was a lovely summer day, warm but not too warm. So Dad sent my brother and me outside unattended to play. Of course, the first place we headed was to the wooden dock that jutted into the canal that connected North Reservoir with Turkeyfoot Lake. The magnetic dock drew my brother and me as if we were steel ingots, not flesh and bones.

We loved to feed the ducks that frequented the waterway that lazily flowed only a few feet behind our waterfront bungalow. This time, however, my brother and I didn’t have any bread to feed the ducks that swam over to the dock…