When I was a sophomore or junior in high school (can’t remember which) I attended the Stan Kenton Jazz Clinic during the summer. It was a 5 day camp that took place at the University of Texas in San Antonio. They put you up in the dormitory and during the day you would go to classes that were taught by people associated with jazz legend Stan Kenton’s big band. His band members, his arrangers, people like that. You’d be assigned to one of several bands according to how well you did at an audition, then the best band got to open for Kenton’s band in a concert that took place on the last night. I’m not sure if Kenton himself was there or not. He was pretty old by then, but I had seen him play a show not too long before this, so there’s a good chance that he was, in fact, present.
Which is all fine and good. Loads of fun already. But the real good times took place in the late afternoon and evening when all the “educating” was done. It’s not hard to strike up a conversation and/or a “temporary friendship” with members of the opposite sex when you share a common interest in jazz music and you both play a musical instrument (extra points for actually playing the SAME instrument). So that was great but, even so, it’s not what I remember most vividly about the week.
The college had an Olympic size swimming pool, complete with diving platforms and the works. I don’t know how many of you have seen the diving boards used in the Olympic games, but they are TALL. There are two of them, and the highest is so tall that only the university’s swim team was allowed to use it. Not meaning to say that the one in the middle didn’t look intimidating…it’s just that it wasn’t quite as ominous, being about halfway between the ground and the top board.
Oh, it did look intimidating, and perhaps that’s why I thought it would be a cool experience to jump from it. The key word being “jump”, because I was no diver. After all, I always had a great time jumping off of the “high board” at the Municipal swimming pool in my hometown. So what if the platform was two and a half times higher than the board at the pool?
So I climb up the steps. If memory serves there were actual steps, not a ladder, as I was accustomed to. That was probably something that emboldened me. I never would have climbed the rungs of a ladder to get up there. But stair steps was another story.
I got up there and looked over the edge…at which point I had to ask myself, “What the hell have I done?” What was I thinking? I knew I had a fear of heights. I guess the idea of water below made me temporarily forget. But it all came flooding back when I judged the distance between where I was and where I would land. I don’t think I was even afraid of hitting the water the wrong way and getting hurt, though I’m sure that crossed my mind as well. This was an irrational fear, I understood that, but I wasn’t able to process the “irrational” part.
I decided I couldn’t go through with it. No way. It didn’t take too long to reach that decision. I turned around and headed back for the steps, letting other, braver souls pass by. But when I looked below to take that first step I saw something that made my heart sink…
The steps were drenched with water from the wet feet of divers returning for another jump. So wet that they glistened in the sun. They looked so slippery that I doubted a ladder would have been any easier for me to climb down. You see, I don’t really have too much of a problem with climbing up…it’s the going down that scares me. And I was scared, I tell you. Terrified at the prospect of slipping and falling to the concrete. Plus, there were other swimmers climbing up, as if they were determined to use this particular platform since the higher one was off limits. Squeezing by them not only increased the danger level, it would also make me look like a yellow-bellied chicken.
So the choice was cut-and-dried. Either walk down the slippery steps or jump into the water. If ever I was between a rock and a hard place, this was the time. Another glance over the edge into the water and I made my decision. It all came down to this: water or concrete. Which would cause the most damage? Hypothetically, of course. And I decided, taking into consideration the distance between myself and the water/concrete, that I would have to grit my teeth and take the plunge.
So that’s what I did. I did everything in my power to remain in an upright position so the jump wouldn’t turn into what my friends and I used to call “a belly buster”. I’m sure, from this height, a “belly buster” could have easily become a “head buster” or a “back buster”. At any rate, I did all I could to avoid a “buster” of any sort. I’d have hated for my parents to have to drive all the way down from Oklahoma to San Antonio, Texas, to visit me in the hospital.
As it turned out I was very lucky…and “luck” is all it was. I went into the deep end without a hitch, re-surfaced, looked up at the diving board and thanked the gods that I was okay. No fatal “busters” this time around. I thought, “What the hell was I thinking???”
I wish I could remember whether or not I wanted to do it again after it was all over. Looking back at the experience now I would say probably not. Surely not. What kind of a fool would put himself through that again, even if the successful attempt had emboldened him? Surely I didn’t think that my fear of heights had been conquered by this one occasion?
But then again, I don’t know. There’s every chance in the world that the only reason I didn’t give a repeat performance was prevented by a lifeguard insistently pointing out that the boards were for DIVING, not for JUMPING.
There’s GOT to be some kind of metaphorical significance in all this…
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