It was late February or early March. James and I were playing at the gravel pit. It was a cold, windy, overcast day, with a few flakes of snow flying, but we were having a great time. I had on my first pair of genuine boots—rubber footwear that you could actually stick your foot right down into with no shoes on, and you didn’t have to buckle them. They were black with red soles and a little too large for me (my mother had bought them at a sale, and neither size nor comfort was a major consideration). Even with two pairs of socks, I “clumped” in them considerably. They came almost to my knees and looked like firemen’s boots.
I was exceedingly proud of them.
There was a little thin ice at the edge of the gravel pit, and we were breaking that ice by stomping on it and then splashing through into the shallow water beneath it. I had been doing this for some time when I found a small pool, covered with what we called “rubber ice.” It was not actually part of the gravel pit, but it was connected by a narrow neck of water. The ice would actually give with your weight and then spring back—a sort of trampoline effect. You can imagine what fun I had with it. Suddenly, it gave way, and I fell into some sandy water unlike any I had ever been in before. I sank immediately over my boots up to my thighs. Terrified, I began to struggle, but simply could not extricate myself. This produced a fear that resulted in an absolute frenzy of effort to get out. The only noticeable result was that I was nearly up to my armpits within a minute or so.
I did not know that I should remain calm—I simply wore myself out struggling. Finally, I had no energy left, and the absolute futility of further efforts overwhelmed me. James heard my cries and came to help me, but he quickly realized that he could be of no assistance. He stood completely helpless, within ten feet of me. As I grew more calm, I noticed that I wasn’t sinking as fast. I told James to run and get Elmer Russell. He was a well driller, and I knew he was home because I had spoken to him on my way to the gravel pit.
When they returned a few minutes later, I had sunk past my armpits. I was numb from the effect of the freezing sand and water and was quite concerned about my condition. Elmer had brought a rope, and he got a circle of it over my head, and I grabbed it with my hands. Being an extremely powerful man, he pulled me out with relative ease. Unfortunately, he pulled me right out of my boots. It was about a mile or so to my house, but I ran all the way—in my socks.
I thought I would receive the whipping of my life—if you have read my other book, My Mother Played the Piano, you will understand completely why I felt that way—but you know, the funniest thing happened. When my mother first saw me—soaking wet, mud and sand right up to my ears, my boots gone—she was real upset. I tried to tell her what had happened, but it was a less than convincing story. Just about the time I finished my explanation, the phone rang, and it was Elmer Russell calling to see if I had gotten home all right. He talked to my mom—for a long time.
When she hung up, there were great tears in her eyes, and she came and hugged me and kissed me. She helped me undress, got the washtub, heated some water, and made me take a hot bath—it wasn’t even Saturday—gave me some hot tea, and put me to bed. I couldn’t make any sense out of it at all. When my father came home that evening, I thought sure I was going to catch it good.
For some reason, they went to their bedroom to talk, which was really unusual, because normally when I messed up they talked right in front of me—so I would know what was coming, I guess. I heard her say, “Oh, Fred, Elmer told me that another five minutes and he would have been gone. We almost lost him.” When my dad came out, he never said much, but I noticed that when we prayed at supper that night, he mentioned me several times and told God how grateful he was that He looked after me when he couldn’t.
On Sunday afternoon, he and I walked over to the gravel pit, and I showed him the place—I guess he wanted to look for my boots, but they were nowhere in sight. He stood there by the little pond of water a long time and looked, and again he didn’t say much, but I thought I noticed him wiping his eyes a time or two with the back of his hand, and I wondered about it, because the wind was hardly blowing—and it wasn’t that cold.
The lesson is—I know you see it—how the threat of loss makes all that we hold dear more precious—how it moves the love in our hearts. God loves us. The Father grieves when He sees us struggling frantically to find meaning and purpose in our lives, yet always ending in greater lostness. How pleased He is to circle His great arms around us and rescue us from certain death. When He carries us home, He says, with great concern, to Jesus and the angelic host— “You know, we almost lost him.”
P.S. Late that fall, I was playing at the gravel pit one sunny afternoon with James (I told you I wasn’t real bright as a youngster—some might argue that age hasn’t helped substantially), and we found one of my boots sticking right up out of the ground. I pulled it out and took it home, but it wasn’t much good. I always wondered what happened to the other one.