THE DAY DADDY JUMPED INTO THE

                                  RED RIVER

 

 

                                It was a Sunday in 1950 or 1951.  It was spring. Just after Easter. We were living in the Paradise community on the Pineville side of the Red River.  We moved there when I was four and stayed until I finished the third grade.  Our church, Emmanuel Baptist, was downtown on the Alexandria side.  There were six of us. Four free-range children…well, three.  Jane was a baby.We were running late for church.

 I must have been seven or eight years old and Becky around nine.  Mama was already frazzled.  She had put a pot roast in the oven on low to cook while we were at church, and in the process, while herding us, had spilled flour all over her dress, slipped on some cooking oil on the floor while shooing the dog making her twist her ankle.  She was yelling for us to hurry and get to the car while wiping off the flour and rubbing her ankle.  Daddy was already honking the horn which made her yell at us more. 

Becky slowly walked to the car reading a book.  Baby Jane was crying in her crib, I was fully dressed but barefoot.  My brother, Bobby, six, was no where to be found.  Mama yelled for daddy to stop honking that horn.  It didn’t help.

She was close to becoming a patient at a mental hospital.

Hobbling around and shouting, “Get in the car.  Now! I don’t care if you’re barefooted. Where’s Bobby.  Someone grab Jane and make her stop crying. Cecil, we are coming.  Nippy find your socks and shoes.  Where is Bobby.  I must teach Sunday school and need to be in a good mood.  Who’s missing? You kids are driving me crazy. STOP HONKING THAT HORN!”  

At last, she found Bobby, and my shoes while ushering us out the door.  Still fussing a mile, a minute.

We managed to get into the car without much trouble. We were off and daddy stopped honking the horn.  The six of us were crammed into the car.  I sat in the middle of the back seat, shoving sister Becky to move over because I needed more room.  She ignored me and continued to read.  Jane was in the front seat with mama and Bobby was crawling around the floor under our feet and irritating us.  There were whines of “Mama, Bobby’s bothering me.  Mama Becky won’t move over.”  She had had enough and began reaching, with her free hand, into the back seat trying to swat whoever was kicking the front seat.  “You children are going to be the death of me yet.  It’s Sunday!  Can’t you at least behave for one day?  I’m a mess already and I must teach Sunday School and the lesson is Children obey your parents!   You heathens would cause Jesus to go crazy.  And, Cecil, honking that horn doesn’t help…”

All this bedlam was going on when we reached the river.  We barely got on the bridge when the traffic stopped.  People were getting out of their cars and looking over the railings.  “Something must be wrong,” daddy said. 

Becky, looking up from her book said, “There’s a boat acting funny.  Look, daddy.  Some people are in the water.”

  There was a boat circling round and round with no people in it.  It was making larger and larger circles.  People were standing on the riverbank and doing nothing.   Daddy got out and looked.  He saw the two people floundering in the current of the river with no one trying to rescue them.  People were just yelling and pointing. 

He threw off his shoes and his suit coat as he ran across the bridge, yelling at us to stay in the car.  He rushed past people shoving them out of his way.   When he got to the levee, he tore off his tie and began removing his pants while hopping on one foot and shouting for people to move.  One man in the water was going under. 

AND THIS IS WHEN DADDY JUMPED INTO THE RIVER!  

Diving into the water, he swam toward the two in trouble. Daddy dove under and found the man that was sinking and brought him to shore.  He went back and grabbed the other man and brought him to the edge.   It took some effort to rescue the men, but he managed to get them to the banks of the river where others helped pull them up to safety.

Daddy was quite tired and out of breath, but he quickly grabbed his pants and rushed back to our car picking up his clothes as he returned.  It happened so fast that people weren’t sure what happened.  People were looking around wanting to thank the rescuer who seems to have disappeared.  The police arrived. The traffic began moving, daddy got dressed and we drove on to church.  Letting us out he said that we didn’t need to say anything about what happened, that they would find out soon enough.

 The next day the newspaper had a picture of him running up the levee with the headline, “Mysterious man saves people from drowning.”

People did recognize him, and he was eventually awarded a medal from the mayor.

© Nippy Blair 2015. Posts and pictures on this blog cannot be copied, downloaded, printed, or used without the permission of the blog owner, Nippy Blair.