I was driving in my ’69 VW up the Hudson toward the Battenkill River. The music was Crosby, Stills and Nash.
“49 Reasons all in a line, all of them good ones, all, all of them lies.”
The drive was about an hour but it transported me from the urban to the country.
It transported me to a magical, fantasy of a River. The Battenkill meandered slowly down from Vermont into upstate New York and eventually spilled into the Hudson. You know, I never saw that confluence where it emptied into the Hudson, I would like to see it one day.
I would park off the road by a corn field. It was just a short walk to the river. The banks varied from high to low. At the low points I could wade in and fish. One day I was on the high bank peering through branches at the river flowing in front of me. I lost my footing and fell in. It was about a ten foot fall and then I touched bottom and it was about ten feet deep. I gathered myself and my gear together and swam to a spot where I could walk out. It was cold. It was early April.
I walked back to the car and changed into dry clothing. I began driving home and after a short while I realized I didn’t have my glasses which I needed for distance vision especially at night. It was dark and I continued home.
The next day I returned and sure enough, there were my glasses resting on the bottom. I stripped down and dove to the bottom and retrieved my glasses. They were a light tortoise shell color and no worse for the experience. The water was clear and cold.