Brian

When I was 13 I saved a friend’s 11-year-old son from a riptide.

John and my father were yelling at me not to go. And I was closest and I went.

I got to Brian and I realized. I dug my feet in to the sand and held Brian’s

feet on my shoulders so that he was above the water at times, so that

we would not get pulled out further until Brian’s father got to us.

We were about a football field and a half out.

I had come up three or four times for air before John got there.

My father was getting pushed back from having ran down the beach and

into the surf. John got to us, and he looked at me like we both understood.

He had to take just his son. My father was yelling at me to swim out at an

angle to the beach which I did forever. And I made it and so did Brian with

John. I went to see them in Kingsport on graduation and John asked

me to tell Brian not to go into College and get a degree in writing.

I understood. I told Brian what his father had asked me to say.

I said to Brian to go into something that used writing and

to write the Novel on the side. You would be surprised.

John was not wanting his son to go into business. He just

did not want him to feel like he wasn’t a success. I told him

to volunteer in something with writing while going to college

to find out what he liked to do (and Word Press wasn’t around yet.)

My friend Brian graduated from college I heard and had gone into

Atlanta to work with underprivileged kids to teach them how to write.