George Paddock
English Comp Narrative Essay 1
My dad left my family while I was only seven years old. My oldest brother Albert was fourteen at the time, and he was forced to become the “dad” of the family. He did a good job; he was unusually mature for his age, and my dad was relatively absent even when he had been at home, so it’s not like life was that much different. In contrast, I was, to say the least, a spoiled brat. So he had his hands full with me, my other older brother Jean-Paul, and my little sister Madeline all together. But he juggled it, and even went to college at the same time.
Now, as I said, I was hardly a model citizen. So I had never learned to swim, considering that my dad hadn’t ever bothered to teach me. It was kind of ridiculous, actually. At the age of nine, in a family that went to the pool once every couple of weeks, I was still using floaties. My mom was too busy to teach me.
One summer in particular, our mom ended up leaving us at the community pool most days while she went to work. So Albert decided it would be a good time to teach me to swim. The problem was, I refused to do anything more sophisticated than a doggy paddle, and I wouldn’t take off my floaties. So Albert had a problem. I wouldn’t swim without the floaties, but he couldn’t get me to swim properly with them on.
So one day, I arrived at the pool to a nasty surprise: my floaties had somehow been left at home. Of course, I didn’t even think about getting in without them. I thought I was doomed to sit by the pool all day while everyone else had fun. I spent an hour whining about how nobody would get up out of the pool and play with me, until I finally realized that nobody in their right mind would get up out of the pool to play in the glaring heat. So I went and sat in the chairs in the shade.
After a few minutes (which I of course remember as hours and HOURS), Albert got up out of the pool and asked me, “Hey little man, why aren’t you swimming?” I replied that my floaties were at home. “Well, I don’t have any floaties, but I’m still swimming.” “But you’re a big kid.” “And you aren’t? Get over here.” After a few minutes, he managed to get me to the side of the pool. He showed me how to move my arms, corrected the shape of my hands, and told me I was doing great.
Then he told me to get into the pool. I protested, saying that I couldn’t swim yet. And I wouldn’t budge. After about five minutes of arguing, the other people at the pool were looking at us funny. So Albert picked me up, and chunked me in the pool. For a second, I was drowning, and then I got a hold of myself, and started kicking. I burst up out of the water, and drew a long gasp of breath. I yelled for Albert, but he just stood there. And soon I realized I didn’t need his help. I was staying above water fine all by myself. The important lesson I learned that day was not how to swim. The real lesson was that sometimes you have to jump straight into a problem even if you don’t know how to stay afloat yet. And to this day, I have the self-confidence to do things most others wouldn’t dream of.
