It was the strangest feeling. It only lasted a minute or two, but it was just enough time — barely enough time — to wonder if I’d remember drowning before I finally drowned. Would it become a memory — even if I only had another minute of my life to remember it?
That lukewarm, murky and green real-life nightmare memory returned several months ago when I received an out-of-the-blue Facebook message from someone claiming to be Mike. He’s the guy I mentioned in my April column. (Remember the story about the jukebox and cheeseburgers at The Golden Rule Cafe in Belle, Missouri?) The message: “How ya doin’ ol’ friend?”
And my response: “I’d love to reconnect, but this looks like a new account, so I want to make sure you’re who you say you are. So … tell me a couple things only you and I would know.”
He replied: “Camp’n at the cave, played wiffleball, hiked to Gasconade River I saved your life. We stole a pack of cigarettes from Jess Birdsong.”
Have you ever felt, just out of the blue, instantly naked? Exposed? Oh, wow, I knew this Mike was THE Mike. And I laughed out loud. Jess Birdsong’s drug store in Belle, just a few buildings down from the Golden Rule, was a real throwback. In the mid-1970s, a kid could go in, pick up a gallon of formaldehyde (for preserving snakes and lizards and things like that), pay for it, and then go on his way. Or he could swipe a pack of Marlboro 100s. Unfiltered.
Wiffle ball? Every yard I had in Belle became a legendary Wiffle ball field. Mike threw a rise ball, the only guy who could throw that pitch. It was never a strike, but it always deserved a great swing — and miss. Camping at “the cave.” It was a sandstone overhang, not really a cave in the sense that it had an entrance to the wooded hillside behind Mike’s house. But a couple of small’ish teen boys could comfortably fit up under there, and a campfire at one end naturally drifted smoke away from the middle of our cave, heating the sandstone to a nice, insulating temperature.
And there was the Gasconade River. As we created the “Outdoor” issues of COMO Magazine and COMO Business Times, this seemed like an ideal time to share this account. Longer story short, our mothers agreed to let us make that hike on the condition that we stay out of the river once we got to the river. Of course we agreed. And of course we were lying. We shortcut our way to the river (shortcut = hitch-hiked), and we were in paradise. On the second day of what was going to be a four-day outing, we were both floating in the river, well within sight of the Highway 89 bridge at Rollins Ferry Access, when the mythical “undertow” of the river grabbed my feet and legs.
The lower-level current was much swifter than the upper level. I swallowed nasty green water, looked up at murky, silty water that turned the sun green, too, and instantly wondered, “Will I remember this before I die?” I managed to bob to the surface once, went under and down the river, then bobbed up again, choking on river water. Mike had already scrambled out of the water — thinking he was going to drown, too — and he was bankside. He tossed a large chunk of driftwood my way. I snagged one arm over the natural lifesaver, and Mike pulled me from the drink. We lay on the damp ground and threw up, packed up our things, and hitch-hiked back home.
That night, a tornado passed through and the river flash-flooded, completely erasing the little gravel bar we’d been camped on.
And here I am 47 years later. I still love the Gasconade River and still have an explorer’s heart with an absolutely true tall tale to remind me that I need to respect a river even more than I love it.
