Stupid Enlightenment

A few days ago a lady walked into my office to do a little business. I didn't recognize her but she thought she recognized me. She asked me if I was the guy that helped her father a few years back. When she said her father's name I realized I was and then I remembered, helping her dad was the dumbest thing I've ever done.

Her dad was a preacher at a small church in a small town near where I work. He ran a few trucks to supplement his preacher's pay. He was a nice guy and very old school. He had learned that I was a scuba diver and had come to me for some help. He had been bass fishing and lost his expensive trolling motor off the back of his boat. He asked me if I would go to the spot where he lost it and see if I could find it.

He told me it was about 15' off shore in a sandy bottom river. Easy as pie I thought. So I agreed. He told me to come to his house on Saturday and we would take his boat to the spot. Hold on, why did we need a boat? It was just easier he said.

So we met on Saturday and he took me to the spot. I knew immediately I had no business making the dive. I could try to describe it but I think the picture below tells the story. The picture is very close to what the place looked like.




At that point I should have said no but my pride and willingness to be the hero overrode safety and my common sense. So we put the boat in and of course, instead of going to the open water in the middle, he drove over to a group of trees off to the side. The middle would have certainly been the best of two evils. The trees are where the alligators and snakes hang out. Still, acting like the man I'm not, I jumped in water and went under. The water was black. I couldn't see 6" in front of my face and that was with a dive light. I literally hit the bottom before I saw it.

I should have gone back up at that point but, well you know, pride and all. So I started groping the ground to see what I could find. It didn't take long before I felt a large tree on the ground. As I went to climb over it I felt something on my back. I tried to back up but something was in my way. Alligator was my first thought but no, this was solid. I was stuck. Had I not been under water I'm sure the sound I was making was much like that of a little girl squealing. After I calmed down I realized I had crawled under some fallen trees. I couldn't see them but they were above me in every direction. Slowly I felt for passages that I thought would be big enough for me to fit through with my air tank. Yes, I was scared.

When I made it out I headed straight for the surface. I told the preacher what I had found. He looked around and pointed to another spot he thought the motor may have been. And what did my dumb ass do? Yep, I went back down where he pointed and found more of the same. After 20 minutes I came to my senses. If I had gotten stuck under a tree there was no one coming to get me. Not that they could have seen me if they did. I was being stupid and I knew it.

When I surfaced and called the hunt off the preacher was disappointed. I could see it in his face. We took the boat out of the water. I dreaded the ride back to his house but something amazing happened on the way.

We started talking about religion. At first it was an uncomfortable subject between a Jew and a Christian preacher but I soon saw that he was listening to me and not preaching at me. I listened to him too. Neither of us trying to convert the other. We agreed on so many things and very easily let the stuff we didn't agree on go. I enjoyed the conversation. As I started to get out of his truck he thanked me. He thanked me for my fellowship, for my friendship and the chance to get to know me. The lost motor was a forgotten item. Amazingly, I left feeling happy about the way it all turned out.

The preacher died the next year, he was all of 56. His daughter told me how he appreciated me going with him that day. Apparently, he never mentioned the missing motor again but he did mention the discussion we had on the way home that day. Every time I think of that day I can't help but think how dumb I was and scared. The funny thing is, I'm glad I did it, not because I made it through a scary situation and live to tell about it but because of the fellowship, his friendship and the chance to get to know him. There was nothing dumb about that.