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Where I may be.......maybe.....the week of December 18th, 2006.

Bobbing for Bennet

The swimming hole was perhaps the best place in the whole wide world, Glenda reflected. Maybe even in the whole universe. She knew her opinion was strongly swayed by the 101 degree heat and the fact that all her friends gathered here in the summer to hang out and play on the rocks and in the water, but all the same she couldn't come up with any other places that scored such high marks as Bennet's Blue Hole. She'd been coming to BBH as long as she could remember, had even learned to swim as a small child there in fact. She was a great swimmer and won many competitions among friends to see how long each could hold their breath under water. Glenda had been told many times, too many to count or remember, not to swim at the Blue Hole by herself. There were a lot of stories and superstitions about kids who had went to swim there alone, never to be seen or heard from again. "But I'm a great swimmer", she told herself repeatedly as she walked the path leading to BBH. She couldn't find anyone to go with her that sunny day and decided to "live dangerously", she mocked to herself.

    Bennett's Blue Hole was named so after a teenager who had disappeared there 60 years prior, triggering a massive manhunt that was unsuccessful. The only eyewitness to his disappearance said he had dived in but never came back up. The Blue Hole was fed by an underground spring that started deeper down than anyone had been able to dive or even  measure back then and eventually the search crew gave up, deciding that poor little Bennett had been sucked down to the bottom and would eventually float back up. But he never did reappear and all the kids started calling it Bennett's Blue Hole, often diving down as far as they could before their lungs screamed for fresh air, daring each other to try finding Bennett's body but terrified of actually doing so. It made for wonderfully wicked fun and the tradition of Bobbing for Bennet was born, a tradition that lasted to this very oh so hot day.

 Glenda arrived at BBH and was dismayed to find herself alone. She stared at the clear blue water and of her reflection. The sandy-haired, freckled face that stared back was one that would eventually be beautiful but still had the baby faced pudginess of a pre-pubescent girl. She grimaced at the reflection as it did the same back at her. Growing up was tougher than she'd thought it'd be. This thought was further illustrated by her gangly arms, legs, and by her flat chest. Her mother assured her that would change in a few years but she was impatient. Some or her friends had started to bloom into young women already and was constantly talking about their new bodies. But Glenda put that out of her mind as she stripped down to her bathing suit. It was time to Bob for Bennet.

The initial shock as she entered the cool water was expected so she held on to the air in her lungs instead of blasting it out in a surprised gasp like so many kids did. As she emerged from the surface of the water the old stories and tales came back to mind and she gave a small shiver, both from the cold water and from the creepy feeling she got whenever she thought about Bennet. Glenda paused for a minute while she considered leaving, but the water was too refreshing to leave. besides, she was a great swimmer.

She swam to the far side of the Blue Hole where the water was the coolest. This was the area that the underground spring came up and where it was so deep no one had ever touched the bottom. A person could dive down and then over to the stream of cool water rising and be carried up swiftly to the surface, a trick all the kids had tried at one time or another. Glenda gathered her breath in and dove down beneath the surface, kicking and clawing her way down into the inky darkness, reaching for rocks along the side to pull herself down even further than she'd been before. As the warmth in her chest started to spread and become a painful burning, signifying the urgent need for fresh air, Glenda kicked over into the upstream of water and felt herself being pulled up.

As she reached ahead for the surface she felt the smooth rock face of the sides slipping past her and mentally gauged how far she had to go when suddenly the rock gave way to an opening and without warning, she was sucked into a side cave below the water. This was totally unexpected and Glenda frantically tried to turn around. The opening through which she'd been pulled by the current was too small and the water too swift to turn back so she pulled herself along the cave passage, feeling her way through and hoping there was a pocket of air soon, because she was quickly becoming dizzy from the lack or oxygen.

At last she saw some light and broke towards it, surfacing in a thrashing of arms and legs as she gasped in the dank musty air of the cave she'd surfaced in. She looked around and saw the light was coming from a strange glowing fungus growing on the cave walls. She let out a small scream as she noticed the piles of dusty bones that lay throughout the cave. Glenda gathered her courage and got out of the water slowly, careful not to disturb the bones. She walked around in the iridescent glow and looked at the heaps of bones. One pile looked more recent than the others and she saw from the words scratched by rock on the wall that it had been Bennet. The other bone piles were much older and she realized from the copper bracelets the bones wore that these had been native American Indians, caught in the Blue Hole the same way as Bennet had been. The same way she now was.

Glenda began to read the words Bennet had written. Sure enough, he'd been sucked into the cave just like she had. He pondered how to get out and if his lungs was up to it. He pondered if he should wait to be rescued. Surely someone had seen him dive in. In the end he waited, which turned out to be the wrong decision, and died there. He lamented in his writing about not getting to become a man, never seeing the sky again, and the fact that he'd never be able to read Dan's Itinerary for the week of December 18th,  2006.

Mon. 18th:

    You can tell from the long hiatus between itineraries that life has got me in a headlock and is kicking my ass all over the place! Keeping the commentary short here in the office today because time is precious today.

Tues. 19th:

In the office today doing all the un-foreseen things that become seen, the un-mentionable things the get mentioned and forgiving others for all the un-forgivable things they dump on me.

 Wed. 20th:

Hump Day in the office. Experience it. Live it. Become it. Because tomorrow you're over the hump, and we all know what that means.

 Thurs. 21st:

My last full day before the Holiday break. I haven't figured out all the fuss about what to call it. Christmas Season? Holiday Season? Who Gives a Rats Ass Season? How about "Everyone just call it what they desire and shut the hell up at everyone else about it" Season.

Fri. 22nd:

I'm out of the office today being Super Dad, able to leap tall piles of crap in a single bound. Super Dads job is never done. Maybe I'll change that someday by becoming Super LazyAss Man.

Have a cool yule mule pull your bobble-head red sled type of weekend!