TOMORROW NEVER COMES (KIDS SWIM IN SWAMP)

Impulse.  “Let’s ask all of Andrew’s friends up to the farm to swim in the swamp.”
“boys  and girls?”
“The whole bunch.”
“What about the risks?”
“Risks?”
“Someone could drown…pushing and pulling…water will be  muddied up.”
“Never going to happen….”

‘I often think of that poem by Edna Jacques that grandma sent me when I worked in the bush.  I told her in  letter how the bloodsucker  black flies, deer flies,  mosquitoes, moose flies., were driving me mad.
She sent me this poem hand written in her shaky scrawl for she had advanced Parkinson’s at the time.  Never let that slow  her down.  I think she wanted  me to develop a philosophy of life  To see sunshine where there  are storm clouds.”
“The poem…do you remember it?”
Sure:  “If you keep your nose to  the  grindstone rough
            A nd hold it down  there long  enough,
           In time you’ll say, ‘There no such thing
           as frogs that croak and  birds that sing.”
“What does that have to do with those kids and  the pond.?”
“If we spend  all our time worrying about the ‘what ifs’ in life, we will miss a lot of the joy.”
So we did it…filled  the  raft with 10 year olds on one hot summer day.. At the time we thought we could  have the kids  up the farm often.  Thinking That this  was just the beginning.  But that never happened.  The party was a one time occasion.  They raised  hell as  you can see. They did  not consider the other creatures of the  swamp pool.  Did not even know. The kids did not know that our big snapping turtles lived in the swamp pond.  She had been there as  long as  we could remember.  She only came out to lay her eggs  about mid  July.  Her breath was enough knock you over. Kissing her was never a consideration.  Rarely even saw  her.   She was there though.  But she was not possessive.  She shared  the pond.  Probably seemed like just another moss covered rock in the pond bottom.  A stepping stone.
“And the leeches, Alan, what about those black devils?”
“Kids move too fast for leeches.  You know what leeches like are waders…people who stand  in still waters wondering about the deep.  Leeches  like  them.  None of Andrew’s  friends ever stand  still.”
Ad so we captured a  moment in time that would never be repeated..  Seized and  held it.  Chedrished  it.  Still do.
We have had lots  of those in our life.   We like to seize the moment.
TOMORROW  NEVER COMES.
One other of those moments comes to mind.  Summer day.   We were on the way to Cooperstonw, New York, where I had  purchased  an
ancient grain sheller from an abandoned  grist mill.  That was our purpose but it was not the only purpose.  Some  people hate  distractions.  They have minds honed sharp as a butcher knife.  Grindstone minds.  And they  are good people, do not get me wrong.   My problem, if it is a problem, is that I am easily distracted. Ready to revel in a golden moment on the periphery.  And there, on a sideroad  to Cooperstown long ago one of those moments happened.
It was a hot summer day.  Persperation hot.
“What are you  braking for, we’re late.?”
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
“Way over there where the river takes a hook.”
“Kids swimming…lots of  kids… so what?.”
“Well  we are going to join them.  Strip down and put on your suit.”
“No, why don’t we  do it tomorrow?  Tomorrow, when the kids  are gone.”
“TOMORROW NEVER COMES!”
And most of us did strip, except for Doug.  He could  have stripped and dived in with the rest of us…Marjorie, Kevin, Andrew…but my friend, Doug, did  not.  After the swim, when we were changing back into dry clothes  on the riverbank, I said to him.
“Doug, you should  have joined  us.  It was delightful.”
“Maybe I will tomorrow,”, he said.
“Tomorrow Never  Comes,”  I said…a kind of throwaway remark.  Not meant to hurt.
And then a very strange thing happened.  One of the little boys…a kid who just happened to be  in earshot of our venture.  A kid who listens…a kid who like most kids  was trying to puzzle out the meaning of life on this  earth.  Or at least searching for a meaning that he might understand.
“You know,” said  Doug, “I might just go for a swim here tomorrow.”
That little boy looked up and  said,
“Tomorrow Never Comes, you know.”
Funny how  some  comments that seem  so  inconsequential can lodge in the brain for a lifetime. The boy had been listening to our conversation all along.  His words … repeat of my words … are engraved forever in my mind.
Tomorrow did not come.  We used a  block and tackle  to lower the corn sheller from the uppermost part of the old stone mill to the ground, then levered it into our truck.  That was  an  adventure in itself.  Doug liked that and we  could not have got the machine  to the ground without him.  Our goal was achieved.  Then we headed home along the same road.  The river pool was still there.  No kids.  We did
not stop.  It was raining and  cool.  Yesterday was hot as a pepper sprout as  the song goes.  Yesterday was gone.
So tomorrow never came.
alan skeoch
Jan 2018

 

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