Honestly, I just wanted to say 'tousled'

I don't know what it is lately, but these seem to have Dad in them somewhere.  Hey, I don't write 'em, I just ...

Ok yeah - I write them, but I'm pretty much limited to whatever crosses my mind immediately after I say to myself, what the hell am I going to write about?

A few weeks back on a Saturday - Jack, Abe and I were trying to figure out how to kill some time.  I thought it might be fun for them to "walk all the way to Iowa."

To their credit, when I brought it up, they said something like, "That's sound horrible/fun."

I don't know which one thought it was a good idea or which one expressed his opinion first, but you must know that it has a 100% chance of being rejected by one and accepted by the other.  No matter the idea.

As the deciding vote, I drove down to the foot of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge.

After we crossed the bridge, we found a way to get to the river's edge.  It seemed low and slow compared to other times I've seen it, but it reminded me of something.

When I was about 10 years old, my dad and I were standing at the other side of river's edge.  We were in Dodge Park.  The river was high and flowing rapidly that day.  My dad asked me what I thought would happen if I tried to swim across.

"Do you think you could make it?" he asked as I watched the angry southern flow.  I was an extremely strong swimmer and it didn't look too far to me at the time. Of course I now know that I would have promptly drowned if given the opportunity.  But that wasn't what my dad meant.

"Do you think you'd end up over there," he asked, pointing straight east to the far shore, "or way down there,"  now pointing considerably farther south  of where we were standing.  I understood what he was saying.

"Oh yeah.  The current.  I'd definitely be way down there,"  I said.  It was obvious.

Then he said, "So when you swam back, you'd be right back here, right?"

I laughed.  He said, "What's funny?"

I said, "Well no.  You'd be way farther down, but back on this side."

At that my dad smiled, tousled my hair, and said, "You're a smart boy.  Smarter than your old man."

I was confused.  Of course he also knew the silly answer to his funny questions.  I shrugged it off.

My dad did a lot of things in his younger years that he later realized were extremely dangerous.  Some of them he told us about, but others he kept to himself for fear that we might try to emulate him in some misguided way.

Eventually, he told us the rest of the stories - but not until he felt we were past the age of extreme foolishness.

I don't think he remembers the day at Dodge park.  Once when I was about 20 or so he did tell me about the day he swam across the Missouri river.  Twice.

He was up at Dodge park.  He was 18 years old.  He had driven there and was wondering if he could swim across the river.  He hadn't counted on the current carrying him so far south on his way across.  Anyway, he got it wrong in his brain.  Something told him that the swim back would somehow even everything out.

As he was telling me this, I was remembering the strange conversation from a decade before.

He had stripped down completely naked and jumped in.  He swam to near exhaustion.  The current was stronger than he thought.  He did not drown.  When he reached the other side, he was roughly a mile south of where he had started.  Naked, in Iowa, and terrified of his dad, he felt he had no choice but to swim back.  No way he could call and tell his dad what had happened.  He didn't know if he had the strength to make it back, but he'd rather drown than take whatever he had coming from his dad.

He rested for a while and began his way back.  On the swim back, he had to rest a couple of times, floating helplessly south as he did.

He survived his second crossing of the Missouri that day and ended up somewhere south of roughly what would be Bellevue today.  It was nothing but farms back then.

He walked north along the shore for a while and knocked on the door of the first house he found.  An old farmer opened up and upon seeing the wet, naked 18 year old, said, "Out swimming in the river, eh?"

The old man got a kick out of the fact that my dad hadn't died and loaned him a blanket to wrap up in.  He offered to call my dad's dad so he could come pick him up, but my dad refused.  He said he'd rather walk naked back to his car several miles north than face his dad after such a stunt.  The old man had pity and gave my dad a ride back up to Dodge park, his clothes and his car.

I was glad to learn what was behind my dad's initial questions.  I doubt my grandpa ever knew about it or he wouldn't have been bragging to us about swimming across Lake Manawa.  Twice.  Well actually that's pretty cool, I guess.