Everything Fred

24 February 2021

I guess it takes a pretty big ego to title a post as above. I’m still not certain I qualify but over the pandemic, self-assessment has seemed to be a time filler for me. That and crossword puzzles.

Honestly, I was only trying to organize some photos. iPhoto has this thing for facial recognition on photos that saves a lot of time when putting a title on the photo and even more time when searching for someone in a photo. One thing led to another and I searched through several thousand photos for me (insert egotism here).

As I searched, I found childhood photos I had scanned in years ago, trip photos, and family and friends with me in the frame. Strangely, most of my trip photos were taken by someone along the trail since I mostly went solo. I had a few selfies but I’m not really very good at that. I guess my arm is really long enough. Note to self: invest in a selfie stick.

I found two photos in old fashioned photo albums I had not remembered. Both were of me as a baby in the arms of my Dad. The first photo was me just home from the hospital. I was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Meridian, Mississippi on November 1, 1948. Dad, on more than one occasion reminded me he had to sell a calf to spring me from the hospital. The second appears to be in front of our house in Meridian, Mississippi. Dad was working for the state highway department at the time.

Some of the photos are of my brother Archie and me, particularly when we were kids in Havre de Grace, Maryland while Dad was at Aberdeen Proving Grounds getting ready to go to Korea. Later in life, Archie and I had a birthday photo made for my Mother when I was in graduate school at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He met me at the photographer that day and we actually wore ties and jackets. Most of the rest of my photos with Archie are when he visited down here in Fort Lauderdale or when we met up in New Orleans during one of my trips.

There are the usual school pictures – all terrible. Probably the only thing worse than school pictures are drivers license photos. All look somewhat like mug shots – prophetic in some cases.

Those high school photos brought back another set of memories. Not any of them good. I was pretty well tormented throughout my high school career and once was almost killed. The almost murder took place in study hall in the old wooden junior high building. A particularly nasty guy sat behind me and took great delight in antagonizing me.

One day he reached over his desk and locked his arms around my throat with any warning and begin to choke me. I passed out and I suppose the only thing that saved my life was the elementary principle who was monitoring that particular study hall decided to walk into the room. The guy behind me must have let me go. The next thing I knew I was face down on my desk and slowly became conscious. Everyone in the hall was apparently well entertained by my almost passing.

My earliest tempting of death was as a kid at the Officers Club swimming pool at Fort Benning, Georgia. I was relegated to the kiddie pool but decided I was ready for the big time. I promised Mom I would be careful and besides, I had a great seahorse float around my middle. I was thus allowed to go to the “big kids” pool with deep water. Everything was going great until a “big kid” cannon-balled into the pool near me and the splash turned me upside down in the pool. The float was a continuous circle around my waist and my feet got caught in it while I was upside down.

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The only thing that saved me was the sorry state of the pool. It leaked like a sieve and to keep water in the pool the military had to keep a firehose running constantly into the pool. I was able to grab the fire hose and pull myself upright. Mother made it to me about the time I pulled myself to the surface. She spilled her cocktail.

Over the years I’ve had several near death experiences like that. One was with Charlie Cooper, a fellow grad student at Ole Miss. Four of us grad students canoed the Quetico Provincial Park in Canada just above the border of Minnesota. We were in the middle of one of the larger lakes when a gale blew up. Charlie was in the bow and I was in the stern. The other two grad students were ahead of us because Charlie and I had stopped to look at something. Chris and Bill made it to an island before the gale hit. Charlie and I were caught up in it and we really had only one shot to make it to the island’s lee side.

The only thing I could do in the stern was to lean on my paddle as a rudder and let Charlie paddle for dear life. The water temperature was about 40F and we would not have lasted very long if we had tipped. We were about to miss the island when I leaned almost all the way out of the canoe and put a bend in a laminated paddle and steered us to the lee side. All four of us realized how close we came to a catastrophe.

It may seem I have this predilection for death by drowning. Archie and I were canoeing down the Big Black River in Mississippi. It was in flood stage but we were doing real well until we got into an argument about the species of tree up ahead. Archie was a wood dealer and I had completed my masters in biology with my concentration in botany. I should also add it was Archie’s first time in a canoe.

I steered us closer to get a better look at the tree whose branches were dancing in the water (the water was well over the banks). Before I could say “don’t” Archie grabbed the branch, the canoe swung around and tipped and turned over. Not a problem right? Well it was. My foot had become tangled in the line to tie up the canoe. It was pulling me under. Fortunately, between fighting for breaths as I bobbed up and down under the water, I got my knife that I always wore on my hip and cut the rope that was pulling me down.

Archie learned a lesson about canoes and he and I both realized how close we came to disaster.

Amazingly, I survived childhood, elementary, junior high and high school. I thrived at Ole Miss. I had a few close misses in the Coast Guard but even survived that.

From a nomadic lifestyle as a kid (Dad moved constantly with the highway department) I’ve been in one location (South Florida) for 37 years. This is my 27th year in my current house. My roots may still be in Mississippi but my life is here in Fort Lauderdale with wonderful friends. Indeed, most have become family in the best possible way.

So, if you wish to feed my ego, there’s a video of photos of me. It’s 18:39 minutes long and you’ll probably get bored after the first 2 minutes. This takes a very long time to load.

Everything Fred