The Rope Swing

This one is a little long

The year I turned 13, about two months before my appendix tried to kill me, I did something dumb. Knowing me and being 12, that shouldn’t come as any surprise, but let’s just say, despite my best intentions, I’m lucky to be here.

School had just gotten out for the year. As with many kids of that era, the early ‘70’s, upon waking and getting dressed, running out the door until dark was just the thing to do. It wasn’t like we had a plan or anything, but if you stayed home, there were gonna be chores or other things you were asked to do, so if you weren’t around, no one could ask, right? You might meet up with friends, usually by chance, because they all had the same idea as you. Enjoy as much free time as possible until you had to come home.

There were few rules as I remember. Some laid down by your parents, or your friend’s parents. A few by some unwritten agreement amongst you and your friends. Of the latter, stay away from Chester The Molester, was one. There was a guy who we considered old by adolescent standards, but I guess he might have been in his early thirties at the time. He always walked, everywhere he went. A sport coat, a trilby hat, slacks, and sensible shoes. We didn’t know this guy was bad news, or offered candy if you went for a ride with him. Not sure any of us ever saw him driving anything, or had any interaction with him what so ever. But rules are rules and kids rumors are ironclad.

Regarding the former, don’t go to the rope swing alone stood out. About a half mile from our house was a dirt road that bordered a creek I spent a lot of time exploring in my younger days. The dirt road joined what for at the time was considered a pretty busy road on the west side. We knew this because the powers that be had painted divider stripes on the blacktop. No shoulder stripes, but the spaced, yellow paint made sure you knew what lane you were in. And ended at a little league park across the street from the elementary school I’d attended. My folks were long time friends of the guy that owned/managed the little league park and I don’t think I ever paid for a hotdog or candy bar out of the concession stand the entire time I lived there. It really wasn’t uncommon after a game, or even during one if you weren’t playing that day, to hang out in the creek in general, and more specifically at the rope swing maybe fifty yards from the busy road end of that stretch of dry creek.

The older kids drank beer and smoked cigarettes both straight and whacky variety at the rope swing. That usually took place at night, but the evidence was everywhere. Empty bottles, cans, and the odd “roach” were ever present. If anyone encountered a group over the age of fifteen, you just avoided the place. Survival skills are hard learned as a kid. One of the main reasons you didn’t want to go to the rope swing alone was because getting pummeled by a teenager really isn’t a lot of fun. Especially when they’ve got thirty pounds on you and all their friends are watching. I had a mouth on me and at the time didn’t have the size or the smarts to not crack wise to someone not yet an adult, but still bigger than me. I guess I’ve always had to learn the hard way.

On this particular morning, my Stingray and I had wandered well away from home. I hadn’t run into anyone I wanted to hang out with, though I did see a few kids knew, it was summer vacation after all, but my day was spent alone. Just me and my trusty Schwinn. I think I’d dumped the banana seat and sissy bar by that time and sat on an old ten speed seat I’d taken off a bike I’d found at the local dump. At some point while I was still in grade school, the county had decided to store about a hundred or more dump trucks full of dirt in the field across the street from the school. Individual piles that were absolute heaven to a kid on a bike. My first dirt bike made that crossing long after my Stingray, my friends, and I helped make the first BMX track before anyone knew what BMX was. Running rampant in those fields as a kid was freedom of a kind most kids these days will never know. I kinda feel bad for them.

My meandering had lead me to those dirt piles and eventually to the creek. Inevitably, I followed the dirt road to the rope swing to see if anyone was around. I’m not sure if anyone knew who, but at some point, someone had climbed the scrub oak on the north side of the creek and hung about thirty feet of 1 1/2” hemp rope with a loop tied at the bottom. The loop was about 6’ off the ground, so you had to climb up one of the broad, scrub oak branches, go out to where the rope was and either navigate the knots to the loop, or as some did, pull the rope to you, stick a foot in and launch yourself. A couple weeks earlier, I’d seen someone, one of the older kids, stick his leg through the loop and swing upside down. In my twelve year old brain there was nothing cooler than that. I found that I was alone at that particular moment in time, but I couldn’t wait to replicate that feat of daring do.

I dropped my trusty steed on the edge of the dirt road and made my way across the creek bed. On the south side of the dry creek were lots of roots and rocks that had a well worn path that meandered through, almost like a stairway on the steep bank. The north side oddly enough was clear of obstruction where thousands of youthful feet had kicked in another makeshift stairway into the hard adobe clay that dominated the valley we lived in. I’d made that trek countless times and I was soon in the embrace of that giant scrub oak. I crawled out on the limb and pulled the rope with its loop to me. This was gonna be as we said in those days, bad. Cool was another adjective, but when things were truly one of a kind, or spectacular in some fashion, bad was the accepted vernacular. This was gonna be so bad. Like badass.

I pushed my right leg through the loop and idly wondered if I shouldn’t wait until there was someone around to confirm my courageous exploit. No matter, I convinced myself. After doing it this way, it would be the only way I’d use the old rope swing. In front of everybody. But especially Natalie that lived a few blocks away. I’d been trying to impress her since 6th grade. There’d be no doubting just how cool, how bad, I was soon. I took a breath and launched myself from the branch, letting gravity and momentum do its thing.

It was glorious!

The arc I traveled would peak in a momentary feeling of weightlessness, then I’d begin going the other direction, ending in that same stomach floating sensation at the opposite peak of my arc. Not sure I’d ever experienced such unbridled joy. Such unapologetic freedom as I traveled upside down over one creek bank, then the other. I wasn’t yet familiar with a deep understanding of physics yet, but I knew the most “swings” anyone could remember making was six. Their momentum bled off and the inertia lost energy. What you didn’t want to happen was to end up dangling from a motionless rope unless you wanted to make the drop at the edge of the north side of the creek. That had ended up in indelicate slides for some to the bottom of the creek bed. It was habit when right side up to bail out on the fourth swing, or the hope for the best on the sixth if you had the weight or had given yourself enough of a push off when you began. On my third sweep, I had the nagging suspicion I hadn’t thought this through enough to figure out how I would disentangle myself from the loop when the time came. When I first saw this maneuver performed, the guy had buddies with him to grab him and assist his escape from the rope. On my fourth circuit, heading back to the north bank, I attempted something akin to a sit-up. My hands made contact with the rope, but a firm grip eluded me. I was gonna have to try again. I was bleeding momentum fast and dangling upside down at the edge of the bank did not sound appealing. I needn’t have worried. About 3/4’s of the way through my fifth traverse, I felt more than heard, a soft Pop.

The rope broke. I’d gone from the weight on the end of a pendulum to a missile. I had about a second to think, “Huh?” Then my head, followed by the rest of me impacted the roots on the south bank of the creek.

It didn’t hurt.

In fact nothing hurt.

Kids are resilient. They bounce. At that age, I could run full speed, hit the ground for whatever reason, and jump back up like nothing happened. If I stumble and hit the ground these days, I lay there for a time. Taking physical inventory. Wondering if getting back to my feet is worth the effort.

I wanted to get up. With all my being I wanted to shrug off what should have been a run of the mill, for a twelve year old, impact. I couldn’t move. Not a muscle. Not a twitch. Nothing. As much as I wanted to, the message my brain was sending to my body went unanswered. Nobody home. Unacknowledged, no matter how many times I told myself to get up, my legs, arms, feet, hands, nothing responded.

Oh shit.

I may have really hurt myself.

Funny how we interpret the passage of time. Some moments seem so brief, we barely notice their passage. Others seem to drag on forever. An unending journey that seemingly goes nowhere. Guess what I was experiencing? It felt like like I lay there forever. The only thing I had going for me was my feet were on the downhill side. I was no longer upside down. I didn’t have blood rushing to my head and my vision inverted.

Hey, when the fecal matter hits the rotating oscillator, looking at the bright side is always helpful.

I don’t know exactly how long I lay there. My best guess was it was late morning when I’d arrived at the creek. Not yet lunch time. I was probably hungry, but I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that I was alone, unable to move, and no one knew I was there. A thousand possibilities ran through my mind. Someone would surely show up. It was summer vacation after all. It was a popular spot that others visited regularly. One or more of my friends would show up. I’d be rescued and all would be right with my world again. After I’d run a list of eventualities through my head, (at least that still worked) I’d even welcome a teenager or five. Surely even the cruelest high schooler wouldn’t beat on a helpless idiot.

I saw turkey vultures. That possibility entered my consciousness like a bomb. I was familiar with Zeus’s punishment of Prometheus. Mythology was a big interest of mine at the time. I really liked my liver where it was and I didn’t want to be snacked on as carrion, but in my mind that was a definite possibility given my predicament. I watched a couple of those buzzards circle drunkenly in the sky above me and I was certain they’d tell their friends and I’d be on the menu soon. There were coyotes by the score in the area too. Black widow spiders and rattle snakes were not uncommon to the place where I grew up. Yep, I was painfully aware that at that time I was most definitely not at the top of the food chain.

Oh the places the mind can wander when it has nothing else to do. Each scenario I imagined built on the previous one until I was convinced that I’d eventually be consumed by something, my bones dragged off and no one would ever know what happened to me. I was reminded of a time when I was 7 or 8 and a friend and I were exploring a field near an old farmhouse and we came upon an old, rusted, abandoned, refrigerator. the kind where the handle latched. It was lying on its back and out of curiosity, we opened it. Inside was a large plastic bag with the remains of two dogs. Our young minds were ill prepared for what seemed to be an act of insufferable cruelty. We cast nervous glances at the nearby house, then lit out as fast as our little legs could carry us back to my friends house. I saw that childhood friend about 28 years ago and we spent many days together. That refrigerator full of dead dogs came up all those years later. I was convinced I’d soon be found like those poor canines. I was certain my demise was only a matter of time. Something that seemed to stretch longer and longer as I came to terms with my current condition.

The sun had begun dropping in the west. In fact the number of hours of daylight remaining could be easily counted on one hand. Realizing that, the interminable drag of the clock seemed to speed up. It was gonna be dark. All sorts of critters would come out. I was definitely going to be something’s buffet. A sliver of hope came when I figured if I wasn’t home by supper, my family would come looking for me. It would probably begin with phone calls to my friend’s houses. When that proved fruitless, my regular haunts might be checked. Surely before I was devoured, someone I knew would check the pace I wasn’t supposed to be at alone. That bothered me for a minute. I mean, where was everyone? This was a popular hangout. Someone surely would come along, of that I was trying to convince myself with a certainty I really didn’t have much faith in as the hours crawled on. I think for he first time in my short life I understood the word dread. Even if someone found me, I was still broken. My capabilities seemed to be reduced to blinking, swallowing, breathing, and to my continued dismay, thinking. In a word, this was bad. Careful what you wish for huh?

Convinced as I was that my end was nigh, the sounds I heard from above me, the dirt road, a place I couldn’t see, didn’t really register. It wasn’t until I heard an adult male voice ask, “Hey. You alright?” that hope leapt in my chest, which I still couldn’t feel.

My response was more of a croak than any intelligible plea. This concerned the one that had happened upon my unfortunate circumstance. I heard him make his way down the bank toward me and I let myself believe providence had arrived. The man soon to be my rescuer made his way next to me and knelt down.

At last! I wouldn’t die alone. I was delivered. My eyes turned toward my benefactor.

It was Chester The Molester.

Now I really understood dread. I’m not certain what I believed would befall me. At twelve years old, I knew molestation was bad, but in a general sense. I really had no specifics about what it truly entailed. I just understood it was something no one wanted to have happen to them.

Being able to get up and run, anywhere, had never had more appeal than in that moment. I’d spent hours hoping I would live, now I just wanted to die before something awful, something I couldn’t quite comprehend came to pass. Coyotes and rattle snakes seemed more appealing than what I was convinced would soon happen.

I dared look into the eyes of the one I was convinced would soon introduce me to nightmares I hadn’t ever considered before and was confused by the look of absolute concern, rather than a gaze of predatory anticipation.

”What’d you do to yourself son?” He asked. “Can you move atoll?”

That was how he said it. At all, one word. Why I focused on that particular phrasing baffled me at the time, but it was only later I reconciled that my overactive imaginings were searching for anything other than the woe that would be my immediate future.

Then he reached out with both hands and I closed my eyes, convinced that things were about to change for me irrevocably. He lightly searched my legs, then my arms, then my rib cage.

”Is anything broken?” He wondered. “Can you move?”

I tried speech. I think I wanted to scream, truth be told. But all I could manage was another rough croak. His look of concern deepened and morphed into determination as he looked about. The loop of rope was still around my leg and his sight took in the surroundings and he correctly deduced I’d been swinging from the rope when it broke, depositing me in my current position.

He told me, “My name’s Ernie. I’ve seen you around. You’re not bleeding and I don’t think ( he paused for just a beat) anything’s broken, but we’ve got to get you some help. Does anything hurt?”

At that point I could manage a whisper and I believe my response was, “Nuh uh.”

That declaration seemed to instigate some urgency in him and he looked at his watch. Looked around the creek bed some more, then back at me. “Aw damn.” he muttered quietly, then shot a glance at me and apologized for his language.

I giggled. What’s more, I felt it. I felt the convulsions, the tiny tremors of my abdomen when I laughed. In fact, I was beginning to have sensations, a tingling, like when your foot falls asleep cause you cut off the blood flow in the way you sat. My fingers tingled. So did my toes. I tried raising my head from the dirt, but that proved beyond my current capabilities. Though by Ernie’s reaction, I had managed some sort of spastic articulation.

”Whoa son. Hold on. Take a breath.” He instructed.

I managed to reply, “I just wanna go home.”

Wow. A complete sentence. I still wasn’t sure about Ernie’s intent, but the fact I hadn’t been subject to anything but alarm and compassion on his part had assuaged my fears, at least for the moment. My arms and legs had begun to tingle and not in a good way. It hurt. I may have groaned. An improvement in Ernie’s eyes I suppose. I wasn’t so sure. My physical self began to complain with greater intensity with each passing second.

As a friend of mine asked me al most thirty years on, ain’t it great to feel? At the moment I would have categorized that as a resounding no. I hurt bad. Just not the bad I’d envisioned at the outset of this misadventure. I suppose it was an improvement though. I raised and shook my right arm. Progress achieved, even if it was agony at the time.

Ernie sat next to me and offered encouragement. I He placed a hand on my left shoulder and told me to take it easy. He declared I might be on the mend, relax and let it happen. Reassuring me I was on my way to recovery. I began to believe him even though I wished it wasn’t as painful as I was experiencing. We talked. He told me about his job at the twine and wire factory. Asked if I liked school and what I enjoyed doing. He mentioned he was divorced and loved his daughter that lived in the town north of us and looked forward to the time they got to spend together. He said he was aware of the rumors about him, but it didn’t bother him, he knew better. As the time passed with small talk, my abilities returned. I don’t know how long it took, but I eventually was able to sit up, even though it hurt like hell. After a time, he helped me to my feet and half carried, half dragged me up the creek bank to then to the to dirt road.

Ernie mentioned he’d been on his way to visit Ed at the little league park and asked if I knew him as he picked up my bike. He wondered if I could make the walk, Ed had a car, a red Cadillac convertible that was his pride and joy. Ernie would ask if Ed would take me to the hospital across the valley, or home if I was up to it.

I told him Ed and I were well acquainted and that would be fine, provided I could make the trek east down the dirt road. Otherwise I could stay where I was and he’d go fetch Ed and the car, the choice was mine. I agreed to make the attempt and he grabbed my Stingray by the handlebar with one hand and supported me with the other as we began the journey eastward. With each step, I felt a little stronger, though I still couldn’t turn my head from side to side. If I wanted to look another direction, I needed to turn my body in the direction I wished to view. I was still broken, but a far cry from where I’d been previously. Things were looking up. I wasn’t gonna die and get eaten and Chester had turned out to be a standup guy.

It was a day of epiphanies to be sure.

Eventually and not without some interruptions for me to rest and regather, we arrived at the ball park. Ernie hailed Ed who’d been in the office upstairs and explained the situation as it now stood. Ed looked at me, shook his head and admonished, “Stevie, Stevie, Stevie. What are we gonna do with you? You should know better.”

I admitted it hadn’t been one of my best moments as he put my Schwinn in the trunk of the Cadillac while Ernie helped me into the back seat.


”I’ve got to tell your mother you know.” Ed asserted and I told him I understood and was much chagrined. When we got to my house and it was explained the condition I’d been found in and where, the inevitable consequences were meted out and the rest of my summer looked to be unenjoyable. My mother thanked my rescuers and the expected wait till your father gets home threat was given with a severity I was unexpectedly glad to hear. A couple months later, the transgressions of that day were forgotten as I suffered a stomach ache for three days and not wanting to be a burden or attract unwanted attention, I told no one until the pain became unbearable and my appendix burst necessitating a two week hospital stay that the doctors told my folks could end in disaster.

That episode did impress Natalie and even the teenagers that had been my bane for years. Surviving something that should have killed or paralyzed you had its perks. Who knew.

The rope was repaired and it was still in use by the time I’d graduated high school. The dirt road is now paved and houses and a hospital inhabit the field we used to run and bike in. Progress I’m told. I’m not so sure, but the world moves on and I get to be here.

Lessons hard learned and happy surprises come in life and for that I’m grateful. I do tend to stay off swings these days though and I try not to deal in rumor. That’s a good thing I suppose.