Author: Pat Cashman

This year’s presidential campaign began with more characters than a Dickens’s novel. Yet, amidst all the debate, rhetoric and blather, not one aspirant so far has said a single word about the terrorism happening in our own backyard. And front yard.

These are terrorists undermining the dirt, sod and root structure of this country’s land—solitary outlaws who creep silently beneath the surface, arising only long enough to ruin the hard efforts of our best lawn care. These terrorists are destroying the very fabric of our America—assuming fabric can be made from grass.

These terrorists are the velvety-furred saboteurs known as moles.
These are not the kind that dermatologists can handle. Freckles, skin tags, seborrheic keratoses and benign lentigines are generally removable—like a drunk at a city council meeting.

But the intruding moles that leave dirt piles everywhere behave like members of a small mammal Mafia: The Talpidae Family, in this case.

And they kill. Lawns. Yours. Mine. Bill Gates’.

Moles don’t care how hard you worked on your landscaping. To them, the underside of your lawn is one big buffet. It’s The Sizzler. To understand moles you have to think like one. So reduce your brain from its normal 1320 grams weight to around 3 grams. In other words, from the size of a large cauliflower to a lentil.

Then, imagine that you have no taste for chateaubriand, lasagna or blackberry pie—but instead salivate for the taste of fresh earthworm. There are no known vegan moles.

Moles love worms and insects like fish love water—and like fish, moles don’t require much air. They can survive in low-oxygen environments, such as a Tupperware party.

Moles breeding season is right about now. Male moles attract female moles with a high-pitched squeal. (To approximate this sound try sitting directly onto a sewing needle.)

But after a family of moles is born, everybody heads in different directions. Moles, after all, are solitary creatures. Even moles hate moles. So when you see a multitude of dirt hills in your yard, it’s likely that one mole, working alone, did all the dirty work. After all, there’s a reason that ‘mole’ is found in the word ‘molester’.

But you’ve got to give it to them: Moles work hard. In fact, a group of them is called a “Labour of moles.”(You can tell by the spelling of ‘labour’ that the word is British—so it only makes sense to send all moles back to England. At least until their immigrant status can be verified.)

The little buggers are able to do their underground tunneling with the help of their powerful limbs—and huge paws. You’d be able to dig like that if you also had polydactyl hands. That means moles have twelve fingers—six on each paw. Specifically, they have an extra thumb. That’s not only good for digging, but also handy for hitchhiking.

There is one type of mole—the Townsend mole—that is said to be endangered in the U.S. That is definitely not the type that’s been at work in my yard. Mine are about as endangered as telemarketers—and just as annoying.

Moles don’t even taste good. An 1800’s English theologian named William Buckland got involved in the hobby of Zoophagy—feeding on other animals. He decided that he would try to take a bite of every creature on the planet—working his way through the entire animal kingdom. He found that rattlesnake tasted a bit like chicken—and that chicken tasted a lot like rattlesnake.

But when he took a bite of a mole, Buckland declared it tasted “vile”—even when covered in mole sauce. There are almost as many methods for getting rid of moles, as there are moles. There are mole-catchers, smoke bombs, poisons and traps. People have tried nitrogen gas, strychnine and calcium carbide and something called phostoxin. Cat litter, blood meal and types of stabbing traps are also sometimes used. The stabbing trap is particularly nasty. Even “Game of Thrones” would find it appalling.

Of course, there are humane traps—where the moles are captured alive so that they can then be transported across town to someone else’s lawn—an idea I highly favor.

The other option of course is just to shrug and give up—because as soon as one mole is eliminated, there will be another to take its place. (See the telemarketer reference made earlier.)

However it is useful to remember the old saying “making a mountain out of a molehill.” In fact there are some geologists that believe that’s how Mt. Rainier got started. So don’t ignore what’s going on in your yard—or climbers may start showing up.

In the meantime, the D.O.T. needs to finally scrap Big Bertha. Throw a mole or two in there. The tunnel will be done in a week.

While recorded history stretches farther back than a yoga instructor, it does not go back far enough to tell us the name of the person who invented the yard sale. Maybe it was a Cro-Magnon man who decided to unload a bunch of spears and clubs he didn’t need anymore by staging a cave sale—or maybe he called it a “Spring Cave-Cleaning Sale.”

No, wait a minute! That has to be wrong. It must have been a Cro-Magnon woman. No man would ever get rid of perfectly good spears and clubs.

When you think about it, yard and garage sales are really just improvements on going to the dump or transfer station. Under the yard and garage sale plan, you no longer pay anyone to get rid of your garbage. Instead, someone pays YOU—and THEY haul it away.

(Indeed the word garage is only one ‘b’ shy of being the word garbage.)

Every weekend—even in driving rain—the entire area is awash in garage and yard sale activity. With no special permission, people brazenly tack up signs on telephone poles, trees and road signs. In fact, a neighbor once pasted two separate placards on the top—and bottom—of a stop sign on our street. It then read:

Be sure and
STOP
At our garage sale!

Indeed the signs are everywhere: GARAGE SALE! YARD SALE! And, the snootiest of them all: ESTATE SALE! They are all pretty much the same thing, but ESTATE sale sounds the best because it suggests unbelievable treasures and magnificent antiques. Of course, the treasures and antiques are usually musty record albums, rusty exercise equipment, funky-smelling toasters—and old shoes (which are also often musty, rusty and funky-smelling).

In other words, the stuff at the ESTATE sales is pretty much the same stuff you would find at the GARAGE and YARD sales. The difference is marketing.

Extravagant claims and alluring adjectives are key ingredients to any and all signage—and the more exclamation points, the better. “BIG, HUGE FAMILY GARAGE SALE!!!!” is almost impossible to pass up. Plus, it is always interesting to see just how big and huge the family actually is.

Sometimes, an entire bunch of families will band together for a NEIGHBORHOOD YARD SALE—or CUL-DE-SAC SALE. Of course, it is not always possible to get total participation—there is always one crabby neighbor who doesn’t want to take part. In that case, look for the signs that read: NICE NEIGHBORS’ YARD SALE.

If you are ever staging a yard sale, remember that besides trying to unload your unwanted stuff, you are also putting your life on display. If you are a married couple selling a bunch of old baby clothes, you are indicating that one of you has recently had a vasectomy.

When you put your old Abdominizer or Thigh Master up for sale, you are pretty much telling the world that you have chosen to go to seed.

And if you are a single man selling a collection of high heels and ballroom gowns…well, that’s your business.

My wife and I have held—and attended—a BIG, HUGE number of garage sales over the years, and have learned a thing or two. Here are some basic truths and rules:

Advice for sellers: The items you are absolutely sure will sell—will not. The stuff you want to get rid of the most—will also not sell. The junk that is so lame that you’re embarrassed to even put it on display, will sell immediately.

No matter what price you put on an item, someone will want it for less. If you put a 50-cent price tag on a dollar bill, someone will want it for a quarter. That’s just how it is. If you are a couple, make sure you have both agreed on what exactly is for sale. In my neighborhood, a woman came home to find that her husband had just sold their beautiful, antique brass bed. Luckily, the buyers had not yet departed with it —and the sale was voided. Even so, the husband spent the night on the couch.

The worst place to hold a garage sale is in your actual garage. That’s because shoppers will be constantly trying to buy the things that are NOT for sale. (A tip: Put “SOLD” signs on everything that is not for sale. Like your antique brass bed, for example). Once the sale is over, remember to take down your roadside signs—unless you want people to continue showing up for months to come.

Advice for buyers: As soon as the guy sells you the bed—quickly load it into your truck and speed off.

Now that I am among those people who did not win the Power Ball lottery, I can finally reveal that if I had won—I would have used the money to send all the kids of our area to Disneyland. Or—if they preferred—Toyota-thon.

But alas, not only did I not win—neither did you. And my ticket was not even close to the winning combination. In fact, it only contained three actual numerals. The rest were fractions and a semi-colon.
Salving our collective wounds are the many stories about lottery winners for whom things went terribly awry after collecting their prizes. It is a litany of drugs, gambling, crime, bankruptcy and human misery—everything that would make a terrific Netflix series.

One guy in West Virginia won big in 2002—followed by a chain of ugliness. His car was broken into on two occasions. The first time, $545,000 in cash was stolen. The next time, $200,000 was swiped. Note to all of you future lottery winners: Do not keep your winnings in your car. Cash should always be kept under a mattress.
(If somebody broke into my car they would only make off with a nose-hair trimmer, an air freshener—and a crumpled Dick’s burger wrapper.)

Another fellow won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1998. Not long after, his brother hired a hit man to kill him. Then his relatives persuaded him to invest in businesses that went belly-up—and a landlady took him for a third of his winnings. Think of how much worse it might have been if he had won $16.3 million.

The stories of woe go on and on. Aren’t you already feeling better that you did not win?
A 16 year-old girl won $3 million in a British lottery—and used it all on vacations, cars, gifts—and breast implants. I believe I would not have been so reckless. I mean, gifts?
On the other hand, if you have ever felt disconnected from your family, winning a lottery is a great way to become re-connected. And don’t worry—you will not have to connect to them. They will connect to you.
You will suddenly hear from your Uncle Milton—even though there is no history of an Uncle Milton in any branch of your family tree.

People that went to the same grade school will suddenly reach out.

“Hey, remember me? We both went to Kenwood Elementary.” And indeed you did. But 12 years apart.
Once the word is out that you won the lottery, your phone and doorbell will start ringing like the slot machines at the Tulalip. And taking even more of your money.
You’ll be asked to be in selfies with everybody in the area—from politicians to bartenders. And you’ll given so many business cards, you’ll have to carry 17 wallets.
In short, you will be circled by more vultures than a dead cow.

So the wise word is to try to win your prize in a state where you can remain anonymous. Washington State is not one of them. So if you win the big prize around here, please know that Steve Raible is going to say your name on the air—and everybody is going to come after your loot. Except Steve Raible who is said to be loaded.
Experts also say not to immediately change your lifestyle.
For example, don’t start making reservations for dinner at Canlis. Keep going to Taco Time. Canlis doesn’t even offer Mexi-fries.

Don’t start shopping at Prada. Wal-Mart still has pretty good deals on shoes.
And don’t suddenly trade in your 1985 Yugo for a Tesla.
Before you ever cash in your winning ticket, see a tax advisor. And if the tax advisor starts drooling when you tell him how much money you’ve won—get a different tax advisor.
Protect your money from people. Like yourself, for example.
So whomever the three parties are that won the Powerball the other day, they should go out and buy themselves plenty of aspirin—because they are going to have many headaches.
Still, despite all the cautionary tales, I had felt pretty good about my chances of being the big winner last week—so confident that a few days ago I brazenly called up the editor of this newspaper and told him where to stick this weekly writing job.

I am not at liberty to say whether he actually stuck it there or not—but I was lucky enough to retrieve it.

“We mustn’t scream at each other, the walls in this house have ears.”
—Tennessee Williams in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“If there is one sound that follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.”
—David Gemmell
“Laughter is just a slowed down scream…”
—Robin Hobb

Scientists say the loudest living thing on earth is the blue whale—whose vocalizations can reach 188 decibels and have been recorded 500 miles away. Perhaps, but the whale’s low-frequency noises are pretty much below human hearing—much like the sound of a woman asking her husband to take out the garbage.
But when it comes to all-out audible screaming—the noise that most mammals make when they are scared, embarrassed, thrilled or goosed—my personal vote for loudest of all creatures goes to Tom Walker.

Walker was a kid who lived three blocks away in my old neighborhood. He was the Babe Ruth of yowlers. Even at ten years old, Walker had the loudest scream I have ever heard on a living creature—including hyenas, wolves, elephants and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Young Walker’s soaring human loudspeaker was perhaps even more strident than a howler monkey, whose screech is said to be just under a train—especially if the howler monkey is under a train.

But Walker’s scream was not the result of suffering or fear—it was just something he liked to do. He knew he was gifted at it, and he loved to show it off.

One day, to fully test the reach of Walker’s mighty holler, some friends and I positioned him atop a 300-foot cinder cone—a butte— that sat on the outskirts of our little town. Placing ourselves at the foot of the hill we waited to see if we could hear his scream from so far. It was no contest.

In fact, a nearby neighbor called the police, certain that a murder was taking place on top of the hill. But even the police siren was drowned out by Walker’s ear-splitting wail. When the cops finally showed up at the peak, Walker—standing alone—just shrugged and said he had not heard anything, but would certainly report in if he did.

I thought about the legendary Tom Walker recently when I came across something called “The Wilhelm Scream.” It’s a sound effect that was first used in a movie from 1953 called The Charge at Feather River. In this NOT-Oscar-nominated film, a character named Wilhelm gets shot in his leg with an arrow—and screams out in pain. After all, it was not one of those arrows with the suction cup on the end.

This is it:

Since its debut, this unremarkable screech has been used in over 300 movies—even some you’ve heard of—including several Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, Batman Returns, Toy Story and more. (For the record, the “Wilhelm Scream” was never used on TV’s The Apprentice—in which Donald Trump did his own yelping.)

Most people believe the guy who recorded the original scream was a musician and voice actor named Sheb Wooley. Some say Sheb was not his real name. Sedro maybe.

Sheb Wooley had one big number one hit song in 1958: “The Purple People Eater.”

This is it:

The same Mr. Wooley also recorded the so-called “Wilhelm Scream”—a painful cry that has been featured in more movies than Johnny Depp, but without the billing.

A person with nothing better to do put a compilation of the many appearances of the “Wilhelm Scream” together on You Tube. If you have nothing better to do, check it out:

If he had been born in an earlier time—and circumstances had been favorable—Tom Walker, and not Sheb Wooley, might have been the author of the most famous scream in the movies. Whether it was an “Aaay!”an “Eeoww!”or even an “Aargh!”—Tom Walker could have delivered it with gusto and volume.

I’ve lost track of Walker over the years, but I like to think he’s still out there somewhere—shouting at slow traffic, bawling about the IRS—or screaming at kids to get off his lawn.
And everyone within miles would know him as “Old Yeller.”

I was watching an old movie on TV a couple of nights ago. A gangster was being pursued by the cops—aren’t they always? So he went to a plastic surgeon and got his face changed. They do it all the time in the movies.
And it wasn’t a mere face-lift. After all, one false surgical move—or twelve— and the gangster could have gone from looking like a burly guy to Melanie Griffith.

So the doctor did a complete face alteration on the thug. When finished, the gangster didn’t just have a different face—but a different posture, gait, voice and religious affiliation. He was also about six inches taller. I guess the movie director hoped the audience wouldn’t notice—or would assume the guy had just been slouching previously.

Up until recent years, that face-changing stuff has been just movie fantasy. In fact, one of the dumbest films in the last several years was called Face/Off.” In that one, federal agent John Travolta lets his bosses’ graft a criminal’s face onto his own, so that he can trick the bad guy’s brother into giving him key information. Logical, right?

(My wife says that if she was in charge, she would never let anyone mess up federal agent John Travolta’s face. Federal agent Jabba the Hut, maybe.)

In real life, there are non-surgical ways to change your face. It’s true. Anyone who has attended a class reunion has seen this method in action.

The guy who was once the neatly chiseled star quarterback in high school, shows up with a face so transformed—round, chubby and ruddy—that he is beyond recognition.

Meanwhile, the mousey, book-wormish, honors student female arrives at the class reunion looking like a Victoria’s Secret model.

What happened to those people? And why does everyone in your high school class look so much older than you? They do, don’t they? Gravity has something to do with it, but otherwise no scientist can explain it.

About ten years ago, what used to be the stuff of old gangster movies and the like became reality. Actual face transplants started being performed not only in this country, but Turkey, Poland, Spain, the U.K. and elsewhere. And it’s not just altering a nose, or lifting an eye-lid, mind you—but switching out an entire face: The Supraorbital notch, the Zygomatic arch, the Glabella, the Philtrum—even the Mentolabial sulcus. The works.

One doctor says, “It’s like completely reupholstering a couch. “ Well, yea—if a couch had eyebrows, lips and a nose. (And if a couch did have a nose, you’d want to be careful where you sat.)
For burn and accident victims, this kind of surgery is nothing short of miraculous—even though there are people who have ethical problems with it. Maybe it’s because beyond reconstruction, there is another way that faces can be replaced—and it can be a bit spooky.

So some readers may want to turn their heads away from this column at this time.

I’ll give you one more sentence to do so.

OK. If you are still with me at this point, here it comes: The surgeons sometimes transplant the face of a CORPSE to a living person! Creepy, eh?
Could it be leading to a day when people’s organ donor cards read: “Eyes, heart, liver, kidneys— and FACE?“
Will people begin changing their wills to add: “And to my nephew Willy, I leave my face?”
At this point, doctors insist that the procedure is only available for patients with the most severe facial disfigurements—and not as a cosmetic vanity thing.
Well, maybe—but still I wonder if someday I could be walking down the street—and come “face-to-face” with a guy I thought had died two years ago.
“Tom! I thought you were dead!”
“I’m not Tom. I’m Dave. I just have Tom’s face now.”
“Oh, OK. Well, have a nice day.”
“You too. Oh, by the way…”
“Yea?”
“You might want to look into getting yours replaced.”
“Got a suggestion?”
“Triple-Crown winner, Pharoah?”
“Thanks. I’ll look into it.”

“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” David Thoreau, seminal figure in the history of American thought.

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the U.S.

“I dreamed I showed up for my SAT’s in the nude.” D.W. Clark, a guy I know who showed up for his SAT’s in the nude while wide awake.

Maybe you’ve never had my nightmare. It’s probably necessary to have once been a radio DJ—but here’s the bad dream: The song you are playing is coming to an end, and you suddenly realize you don’t have another tune cued up. Not only that, but you can’t even think of anything to say. There are no commercials to play, no news to read—as the song fades and there is nothing but dead air. Then I wake up, sweating.

It turns out, as I talk to others from the radio trade, the dream is a typical one—although it not so common among talk show hosts—who don’t usually play music and could never imagine themselves with nothing to say.
My wife, once a waitress, says she has a recurring nightmare about having too many customers to serve. A friend of hers, who actually owns a restaurant, has nightmares about having NO customers to serve.
Word is that a person of 75 years of age spends 25 years asleep. So far, my neighbor’s nine-month old has slept about 20 minutes. The kid’s got some catching up to do. The good thing is that the baby probably hasn’t had many nightmares yet—at least not the kind about their teeth falling out.

Some experts say there are 12 universal dreams, either scary or pleasant. (Bakers have 13.) Some think such dreams are predictors of the future—but I’m not so sure. I’ve been having dreams about flying for years, yet have never awakened and been able to lift off the floor. Except once when the cat startled me.

Being naked in public is a very common nightmare scenario. Experts say it reflects our conscious fears of exposure and embarrassment. I wonder if porn stars have nightmares about being fully clothed.

I had a girlfriend in college who always wanted to tell me about her dreams. I dreaded it because they were always so boring.

“I dreamed I was sitting on a park bench watching a squirrel,” she’d say. “What do you think that means?”
“That’s classic,” I’d say between yawns. “You are burdened by an urge to harness nature, and yet feel powerless to do so.”

A look of understanding washed across her face. “Yes! Yes! That is SO me!”

I think the business of dream interpretation is so big these days because most people can’t bear the thought that their dreams might not actually mean anything at all.

For example, a nightmare about missing an airplane flight is interpreted by some as indicating that the dreamer is missing out on something in their waking life. Sure. On the other hand, it could also have everything to do with having pizza with anchovies right before bedtime.
I remember my uncle Johnny once telling me to try and make my dreams come true. That very night I dreamed of robbing a bank. That was ironic, because my uncle Johnny was a cashier for a bank at the time. He later moved on to something else. Jail.

But the most common dream—one that more than 80 percent of people have—is that of being pursued or chased. While it is not always clear whom or what is doing the pursuing—it is most often a monster, a giant or a telemarketer.

The flipside is a dream about being embraced or loved. The lover in such dreams is most often a spouse, a secret admirer—or a telemarketer.
Dreams can be awfully confusing.

“Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” Kenneth Murphy, FEMA director for Region X, which includes Washington State.

Kenneth “Chuckles” Murphy was quoted above in a recent New Yorker article detailing what will happen when a huge earthquake—and then tsunami—hits our area. It is all so scary that it’s probably best to just give up. Reading.

Despite modern science, predicting earthquakes seems little more precise than picking the ponies. Yet, there are plenty of experts who think “the big one” could happen around here at any time—perhaps right in the middle of this paragraph.

Of course, if the “big one” HAD happened in the middle of that last paragraph, you would not likely still be reading this one. So far, so good.

If there is a book of earthquake jokes, it must be as thin as a flour tortilla. Still, one of the earliest routines I can remember as a kid is seeing the old-time comic Red Skelton doing a bit about a drunk guy walking down the street—staggering around and nearly falling down. Then Skelton said, “Now, here’s that same drunk walking down the street during an earthquake.” He walked normally.

During a real earthquake of course, the only happy person might be the lazy kid at the Sherwin-William’s store tasked with shaking cans of paint—his job suddenly done for him.

I’d feel bad for anybody on the verge of winning a game of chess or “Jenga”—or who had just spent long hours putting an Etch-a-Sketch drawing together.
And I certainly wouldn’t want to be a hemophiliac standing in J.F. Henry’s cutlery department during a major temblor.

Referring back to Mr. Murphy’s “assumption” at the beginning of this column—West Seattle and environs, being indeed west of Interstate 5, would not only be toast—but scrambled eggs and dead meat too.
The place would become a geographic Grand Slam Breakfast.

There is only one thing for a West Seattleite to do: Move to the east side of the freeway. Maybe a nice place on Beacon or Capitol Hills? It wouldn’t hurt to start looking.

Scientists explain that 80 percent of earthquakes in the world happen in this neck of the planet—around the rim of the Pacific Ocean—the so-called “Ring of Fire.” Johnny Cash explains it more fully here:

Think of the earth’s crust as consisting of moving plates—similar to the kind circus performers would spin on The Ed Sullivan Show. Again, another instructional film:

The tectonic plates of the earth, when shoved together, crack the earth’s crust and make things standing upon it—i.e., you, me and buildings such as “Spud ” on Alki—as shaky as the Greek economy.

At least that is what modern-day seismologists believe. Through time, there have been other theories:
1) In ancient Greece it was believed that Poseidon, god of the sea, would occasionally get angry (like Mariner fans).

In such cases, Poseidon would strike the ground violently with his trident—and cause earthquakes. It was the beginning of the anti-trident movement in Old Greece, leading to the oft-quoted counter-argument: “When tridents are outlawed, only gods will have tridents.”

2) In Japanese mythology, earthquakes are caused by a giant catfish. That, of course, is absurd. Everyone knows Godzilla defeated that giant catfish some years ago.

3) Hindu mythology held a different explanation: The earth is held in place by eight giant elephants—all of which are balanced on the back of a turtle—which is itself standing on the coils of a snake. When anyone of them shifts around, an earthquake results. Of all the world’s explanations for earthquakes, this one seems most plausible to me. When I’m really snockered.

It’s not the big earthquake that’s dangerous to contemplate here in the Northwest—but the tidal waves, avalanches and landslides that may come after. Yet, it’s hard to find many local residents who are thinking much about it. We tend to spend more time planning for Seahawks parties than we do cataclysms—and actually welcome seismic events when they are Lynch-caused.

Yet, experts like Kenneth Murphy warn that we all need to get serious and formulate emergency plans. In fact, I heard one expert say, “Your pets need a plan as well.”

No need to tell my dog. He’s been diligent—burying bones and stockpiling balls and sticks.
And he seems instinctively to know that—earthquake or not—being around tsunami-prone bathwater is something to avoid at all costs.

Ever met one of those people who seemingly can do everything? I know a guy like that.
He speaks 47 different languages fluently—including Esperanto.

He can play fourteen musical instruments—simultaneously.

He is a master in woodworking, auto repair, computer science, world history and literature—including the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Ann Coulter.
He knows the difference between the words turgid, tumid and turbid.

He’s the kind of annoyingly smart person who could probably name every bone in the human body—even as you were wishing to break all of his.

And yet, I recently found out something he does not know how to do—at all. Amazingly, he doesn’t know how to swim.

He’s not versed in the sidestroke, breaststroke, or butterfly. He can’t even do the dog paddle—not any version of it, from Shepherd to Shih Tzu. As a result, he’s about as comfortable around water as Superman is around Kryptonite.

How could this have happened, I wondered? He says that during his busy childhood—which even included learning to sail a boat—no one ever thought to teach him what to do if he fell out of one. And now, all these years later, his inability to swim is one of his darkest secrets and embarrassments.
I always wondered how Tarzan learned to swim. Apes raised him—but what did they know about the water? (Although I did see a monkey waterskiing on Evening Magazine last night.) But however he learned it, Tarzan was fearless diving into rivers that looked murkier than bean dip.

He always swam effortlessly—even with a hippo nipping at his loincloth. And he always knew how to tell a pond from a quicksand pit. That seemed like a good thing to know. As a kid, quicksand always gave me the creeps. I can still remember old movies where bad guys sank into quicksand—until only their hats were floating. Unless they fell in upside down. Then, only their shoes remained.

A well-known local TV sportscaster I know can’t swim. He’s great at backgammon, but not a backstroke. Luckily for him, most TV news sets don’t include koi ponds or waterfalls.

My wife’s mother was a non-swimmer too. For several years she would never come to our house to visit us. Then I removed the moat.
If left on my own, I would probably be another of those who can’t swim. But my mom and dad didn’t allow me that choice. They equated learning to swim with all other crucial life preparations: Watching for cars, learning first aid and putting the toilet seat up. (Although to me, as a non-swimmer, keeping the seat down seemed safer.)

When I was eight or nine, my dad decided that I needed swim lessons. Only problem: I was terrified of the water. Even large containers of Snapple scared me.
And every time I’d been to a public pool previously, I sank like a bowling bowl. And that was just in the showers.
So one early June morning my dad dropped me off at the entrance to the city pool for my first lesson. I waved goodbye as he drove away. But I had no intention of going inside—and as soon as Dad’s car was out of sight, I began walking slowly home, skipping my swim lesson altogether.

We didn’t live far from the city pool, so I took my time. Before arriving home, I used the garden hose to get my suit and towel convincingly wet before hanging them on Mom’s laundry line. It was, if I may immodestly state, a perfect plan.

It became a daily routine: Dad dropping me off at the pool, me pretending to walk inside—and then strolling home. It went on for almost two weeks. Then the old man bumped into my would-be swim instructor at a Rotary Club meeting. “How’s Pat coming along with the swim lessons?” Dad asked the guy.
The answer spelled curtains for my stay-dry scheme.
The next day, my perturbed pappy walked me all the way into the changing room—and then out to the pool where swim classes were underway. Then, as he watched sternly from the sidelines, I shakily waded in. I was sure the instructors would soon be dragging the pool for me—but by the end of the lesson, against all odds, I was actually afloat.

By midsummer, the lessons long over, I went to the pool every day—jumping around in the water, twisting and struggling while battling imaginary alligators Tarzan-style. The fear of being in the water was over forever.
Now if I could just screw up the nerve to take quicksand lessons.