Five-Sixths Submerged: A Runner's Tale

 

Scene: Late January 1978, a few days after the Blizzard of '78.  A cold, but not too cold, winter's afternoon, 4:30 PM. 38 degrees, there has been snow melting for the last day or two.

   Coming off of a splendid Fall 1977 All-Nassau County high school cross country season, I had to keep my long distance base over the winter, prepping for spring track season.  Distance now, speed work later.  Our coach would allow us our afternoons but he insisted we get the mileage in all winter.  He would sometimes check on us with his car to make sure we weren't cheating and he'd have us log our mileage. 

   We would run 3 miles at a good pace one day, and three days of 6+ miles, with one day 10 miles and up. Two times a week we would do a morning five-miler BEFORE school. That's a 6:30 AM on-the-road calling.  My Dad was always up already, getting ready to go to work. He was proud of my dedication.  My fellow cross country and track teammates were running machines, and we were used to winning, having been County Class “C” champs a year earlier, in 1976.

   Having been unable to run outside effectively for at least five blizzard days, I was antsy and just wanted to run some mileage. After all, a pent up 17-year-old young man and athlete needs to be active. Or explode! Or perish!  The near 40 degrees had me don a tee shirt and sweat shirt, maybe a woolen hat, and running shorts.  No sweat pants for this runner, Hey, it’s 40 degrees, not 20. 

   At my parents’ good house in the Nassau County suburbs, we were perfectly middle class.  Dad had a good job for Pan American Airlines but worked his ass off for us, as did my Mom raising a nice family in a good town with excellent schools.  We had the hard-earned opportunity to succeed.

   So, one fine winter’s afternoon, say a Tuesday, this growing boy embarked upon what he thought would be your average "10-miler."  Back then I never, ever thought of myself as a “lowly” jogger.   I never fit the image of a fat, old guy (like me now), wearing three layers of sweatpants and sweatshirts, with a stupid 1970s head band, jogging slowly and profusely sweating. And they usually looked bad doing it. Ha Ha. I was, back then, so many years ago, surely not that guy.

   With the snow melt, I had to avoid or leap over puddles and small rivers of water heading to our suburban sewers. That would always make for an added difficulty to the distance run.  Snow, ice, slush, water, wind, and traffic were factors inhibiting winter running. As I ran my mileage, I left my little middle-class town and trod northwards into Old Westbury, where the rich people lived.  I felt very fortunate to live near here, as running in Old Westbury, Matinecock, and Old Brookville was always nice as you had two lane roads, giant houses and estates to run by, and a safe place to relieve oneself (sorry, TMI) if one had to.  A long distance run may bring things on, if you know what I mean. The near country roads would cross the Long Island Expressway on bridges well above the busy L.I.E., so it was like the huge highway was never an obstacle. Watch out for cars and trucks zooming along parallel on the L.I.E. service roads, though.  I legged out my first three miles to get to a private property horse farm where there was a one lane paved farm road that took me deep away from the service road and into C.W. Post College property and the vast rolling hills of the S.U.N.Y. Old Westbury campus. 

   As I drove on, running, sweating (not like the fat, old guy), and covering ground, running up a nice hill, 200 yards of incline, only to run down the other side, closer and closer to my weather-related destiny. At a certain point on the SUNY Old Westbury campus, there is a gated entrance and exit leading to the L.I.E. west-bound service road. As I ran about 300 yards towards the gate, in the distance another 100 yards away, I spied an odd sight. 

   Up ahead was low ground with a small valley where the campus road met the L.I.E. service road. Well, a lesson in gravity and meteorology met me head on. The massive snows, now melting all day, have begun to pool, excuse me, to "lake," as in accumulate to form a giant snow melt lake. To my growing consternation, with seven miles behind me, and only three to get home, I am perplexed by a giant water obstacle. To my immediate front, a mere 50 yards away, is a Volkswagen bus, at six feet high, smack in the middle of the snow melt lake, with only about one foot of the vehicle above the water's surface. Talk about a ruined interior, engine, electrical system....well, the whole bus was wrecked.

   Knowing that in 38 degrees, a swim in five feet of snow melt lake water would be perilous, I had a decision to make.  If I retraced my steps, 7 miles in, it would have been a 14-miler. At this point, I needed to get around this frigidly watery obstacle. 

   My running shoes, sometimes called sneakers, were wet and getting heavy. I just wanted to get home. To a hot shower and a warm home.  My zeal for this running craft was now waning; the joys and sense of accomplishment were rapidly evaporating, unlike the “lake” ahead.  I looked to my right and left, off of the two-lane college campus entrance road. There seemed to be water everywhere I needed to go.  Knowing the area well when not flooded, I probed the wet grass and edge of a densely wooded area.  Geez, there is absolutely no one around, not even a New York State trooper or campus police to tell me to turn back. "I'd turn back if I were you," said no signage. The sun was thinking about setting in the next half hour or so, I needed to get the heck out of there.

   Probing further to my right, off-road, into the watery and muddy wood line I did venture.
Damn! I sloshed into water six inches deep.  My sneakers are now submerged and soaked. That's just great, I said, a 1978 period phrase more likely.  Perhaps the use of an expletive.  Resigning myself to the fact that I will run home any way I can, I realized that I will survive if just my feet are wet.  I was all in, so to speak. Figuratively, of course, all in to the dilemma, not the drink.  Progressing, rather sloshing, through a foot of water, I ventured further off-road.  Nobody knows I'm here, if I were to fall or injure myself. Be careful, you dumb ass.

   Pressing southwest to a dry hill about 30 yards away, I sloshed into the unknown. Like a true murky lake, I could not see its depth further ahead.  My next slosh resulted in a plunk!  Knee deep in the icy sauce. Oh, crap.  I must drive on, continue mission, Charlie Mike.  Sloshing knee deep for 10 yards, I cannot go back, only forward.  Continuing the slosh, I plunk again, this time waist deep.  Great! I am screwed now.  Everything wants in.  My bare legs and everything navel down is soaked.  Woooaaahhh.  I cannot go back.  No longer sloshing, but now wading into the frozen element, I breathe in the shiver of a young man very wet in belly deep ice water.  It was beyond refreshing; more like shocking.

   Whose fault is it? Mine and mine alone. Am I to perish at age 17 1/2?  My Mom and Dad will be sad. Same for the track coach, although he bore no responsibility at all for my poor decisions.
Wading forward, I am a freezing idiot in a real pinch.  I am a mere 20 yards from higher ground that will get me to the unsubmerged portion of the L.I.E. west-bound service road. If I can get to the road, I can sprint like a man on fire to the Old Westbury Police Station a half mile away. God help me.

   Wading, eyes on the prize, a final plunk! Oh, no!  Chest deep in a frosty swimming hole. I am totally screwed.  Having no other recourse but to soldier on, soaked like a sponge in the kitchen sink water, I literally swam the final five yards.  My sanctuary within my grasp, I clawed up and climbed out of my potential watery grave. Thank you, God! 

   I ran my drenched frame up the hill and over a small ridge line to finally spy the "dry" service road.  Tumbling and sliding down the snowy and wet-leaved hill, I am now standing on a dry street. I never wanted to feel pavement under my feet more than at this moment.  The frosty, probably 37 degree, air is starting to freeze the wet clothes to my body. Awesome. I started to run over the crest of the hill when I saw my vehicle of deliverance.  Sitting parked at the service road curbside 100 yards away, I sprinted to an Old Westbury Police cruiser.  In not a few wealthier Long Island towns, they are served by Nassau or Suffolk County police and their own local police force.

   Knowing now that I was not going to die, I tried to keep my composure and to tell the town cops that I fell in the water, without a long and arduous explanation. Asking them, begging them to drive me home, a big three miles, they said get in and drove me home.

   As the O.W. police cruiser pulled into our family home driveway, I jumped out, said Thanks to the kind officers, ran into the house and up the stairs.  I shouted to my Mom that I was OK and that I would explain after a nice hot shower.  I was not dead.  Thank you, God. Thank you, God.
This highly-motivated, in-awesome-shape high school runner learned a number of valuable lessons.
   As an exclamation point on the whole debacle, the following day, our local Long Island newspaper, Newsday, covered the massive flooding due to blizzard snow melt.  One telltale photo, from all the photos that they may have taken that day, was a helicopter aerial view of THE Volkswagen bus, five sixths submerged. I was there!  I could have died there, but did not.  Alive to tell this tale, 44 years later.

   I did not tell the coach that I ran “only” seven miles that day.

   I love the fact that the Newsday photo was of exactly where I was.  Proof to back up a true story. The time-weathered photo is somewhere deep in the Melnick archive, perhaps as deep as the cold snow melt lake that I had gone swimming in.  Give your body to the game, indeed.

Richard Melnick,
Writing from the Heart assignment.
March 14, 2022.