John 'The River Guy'

Yeah, I do! I get real jealous when I read of groups of swimmers who meet in these large metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City two to three times a week to distance swim in open water. And I’ve tried hard to advertise for folks to come out with me for the past fifteen years or so. Jim, is a new friend of mine and an avid swimmer who splits his time between between Rhode Island and Hokes Bluff, AL. He told me just last year that it’s so easy up there to get someone to participate in aquatic fundraisers as volunteers and participants. That you can throw a rock out your window and hit someone who wants to go out for a swim with you. Here in Alabama, not so much. He rues the moment he comes back down here from April until mid summer. Not so much as a citizen, but as a swimmer. He has so many struggles in getting people to participate in a swim or as a ‘float’ spotter for his annual bridge to bridge swim fundraisers for Coosa River Keeper here in Gadsden between our Broadstreet Bridge and the Interstate 459 Bridge. From what I’ve experienced he’s just hitting the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Here’s what I’ve encountered over the years swimming in local water ways:

• Swimming from Rainbow Marina in Rainbow City, AL. down river I had the police called on me for getting mad, pulling off my goggles and slamming them into the water because they kept getting filled with water. This due to being legally in the river adjacent to someone’s property, while not on it. It was a classic ‘Karen’ phone call before there was such a thing as the term. Of course the cop came down to investigate and agreed it was one of the most ridiculous calls he’d ever attended to.

• Swimming out of a private lot in Whorton’s Bend, Etowah County, AL. I encountered a fisherman who stopped mid channel to meet me in the channel and to provide me a menacing stare is if to say that I needed his permission to swim in a public body of water. Of course I gave it back to him as we stared each other down for a solid ten seconds. Cranking up his motor he finally moved on southward.

That’s why I miss those days as a member of San Diego’s LaJolla Cove Swim Club. People were swimming in the Pacific everyday. Even to this day they have party swims once a month around holidays. You bet I had to fly out there a few times a year just to have what I considered ‘my normal’ in regards to fitness. But, here you’re lucky to not get shot for getting into someone’s ‘way.’ It’s just another infuriating aspect of living in a socially regressive part of the country. That’s why I see the photos of those swim groups who meet in Chicago to go out on Lake Michigan. Or in New York who swim under the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s why I mock washouts who think that fishing is ‘exercise.’ Who are so out of shape they’d drown if they fell over board.

When one thinks about the issue, it’s no different than those low lifes who harass bicyclers on the sides of streets and highways, some times even killing them. I just never thought that exercising while minding ones business could bring out such insecurities in a certain segment of society. Yet, those are the times we live in. Being an open water swimmer in a deep South state carries a novelty with it. Sometimes what I call a ‘perceptive liability.’ One stating you’re an educated, elitist, uppity, or hippy, liberal type, not worthy of sharing the ‘wake.’ Swimmer, you may come across suspicion, even scorn by someone being psychologically threatened by your ‘aquatic novelty.’ Don’t let it thow you! You’ve got just as much of a right to share that space with anyone else using it. Besides, who’s gonna save them when they get drunk and fall overboard. I bet they won’t have scorn for you then. Then again…..they still might!

Stay Wet,

-John