MY son is in Boy Scouts. He is 12 years old. They tell us that to advance to the next rank he needs to learn how to swim. MY good friend Tom told me that I could write a letter explaining why Dennis' is incpable of swimming, but then he found out we couldn't do that.
How do they meet this requirement if you live in the desert and will never learn to swim? There are Boy Scouts throughout the world and I can't imagine that they all know how to swim.
I know, now you're asking yourself; Why can't Dennis swim?
Dennis is a stick boy. A tall, skinny kid. Think Disney's Hercules before he grew up and you've got Dennis. Zero or pretty close to zero body fat. You put him in the water and he sinks like a stone. Add to that his natural lack of any kind of rythm and, well I don't see Dennis swimming anytime soon.
This reminds me of a funny story;
We were at Cub Scouts camp and the boys were getting ready to do their swimming test for their buddy tags. Us grown ups were up on a deck that overlooked the dock where the boys had to jump off into water over their head and swim a few laps. I noticed Dennis following the other boys and asked him what he thought he was doing.
He smiled that quirky, beats me, smile and followed his buddies down to the dock. He was last in line and all the other boys jumped in the water and did their laps.
As Dennis got closer and closer to the front my friend Tom and I were laughing because we both knew of Dennis' mutant ability to sink like a stone. We started shouting out warnings to the lifeguard that he was finally going to have to get wet.
The lifeguard looked at us like we were out of our mind.
Then it was Dennis' turn. He walked up to the edge of the dock and, without hesitation, jumped right into the water. I don't know if he had been constantly praying to Jesus the qwhole time he was in line and was hoping for some sort of swimming miracle but, unlike Jesus, Dennis' sank like a stone.
The lifeguard stood their for a brief moment, realized that the kid he thought would just swim like the rest of them was standing on the bottom of the lake (it was probably only five feet deep, plenty deep for a Cub Scout). He jumped in, rescued Dennis and we all gave a huge shout of approval.
When they were done, Dennis came up with the rest of his buddies, smiling from ear to ear. Sure, he didn't pass the test with everyone else, but he did his best and tried where a lot of people would have just gone with the, 'I know I can't do it I might as well not try' attitude.
Now, they're trying to tell us that Dennis can't advance in Scouts unless he can swim.
I don't think so.
This is far from over.
TO BE CONTINUED