The Float Away Shoe

A new camping story!

On the day that my mom, DP, baby Backup, GM and Jr left me at the campsite while they all headed for home, I took all the boys down to the beach to wait for their Daddy to arrive and camp with us. We were all super over tired from all the days of camping and I was perfectly content to let the boys fish and jump in the water while I finished reading a could not put down book set in France.

The boys were doing some serious jumping into the lake. We had moved down from the main beach so as not to hook anyone (that would be so bad) and there was a bit of hill that was great for jumping in the lake. All were having a great time until S2 suddenly screamed “my shoe! My shoe!”

Now, to fully understand what is about to happen here, we must back up a bit further in S2’s history. He loves Croc shoes. Preferably camouflage. Last year we searched high and low for these shoes and finally found ONE pair. This year I started searching BEFORE the snow was gone, determined to get a size for this year and next. We searched and searched and searched and searched. I searched on line, in the stores, I called regularly to stores, and we could not find these shoes.

Finally, just before we left for camping, a store found a pair in S2’s size at the big mall uptown. A friend of mine with said she would pick them up for me, which is good because I haven’t been to the mall in ages and I would hate to break that streak! So S2 finally had his camouflage crocs. He would have slept in them if I would have let him. And it was these shoes he took to the beach, left near the shore and when jumping into the lake, and was knocked into the lake and being the floating type of shoe it was, quickly began to float away in the windy weather. Because it is a CAMOUFLAGE shoe, we didn’t even see it at first. S2 began to shriek just when it was at that point of realizing it was nearly away for good.

I am not fond of seaweed. I am not fond of swimming. I do enjoy soaking up the sun rays and working on making sure my hair is lighter at the end of a beach day than the beginning – it saves on hi-lite expenses. You girls, you know this. I save my hubby money every time I get my hair lighter at the beach!

So, that is why I looked to S1, who is a very good swimmer, and said “Quick, rescue your brother’s shoe!” S1 looked at the floating further away shoe, looked at his now screaming brother and decided that it was just too far away of a swim. “Take the life jacket!” I called to him as I seen the doubt in his eyes. He kept his eyes on the shoe as he began to pull on the life preserver and the wind carried the shoe a little farther out. “Quick!” all of us began to call.

He jumped in the water. We all held our breaths. He swam with strong strokes, got nearly to the shoe, and turned back to look at the shore. I know it’s not the same, but I got a glimpse of Peter when he was walking on water toward Jesus and just froze and began to drown. S1 was nearly to the shoe and he just froze. “Keep going!” I hollered out to him.

S1 panicked. He seen a fishing boat and tried to flag it down, even though it was quite a ways out there. This was not good because I knew he was fine (just over his head) and if he panicked I would have to pull him to shore.

I would have to touch seaweed.

Sternly I yelled to him, “YOU CAN DO THIS!”

I could see him take a deep breath and push forward. His family on the shore cheered for him. In just three more strokes and he had the shoe in his hand.

We went crazy. We were jumping up and down, we were hollering and cheering. S1 was swimming triumphantly back, his head held high above the water, pride radiating from his eyes.

I could have cried, my little ten year old had faced his fears and conquered them. He was getting bigger right then, right in this moment, and we were there to witness it.

S1 got the biggest heroes welcome as he handed S2 his shoe – which he immediately put on his foot. We slapped his back, we hugged him, we cheered him, we gave him a mountain dew.

And we decided we had better call it a day and head back to camp.

He spent the rest of the camping trip retelling the story with great animation. We all kept a very close eye on the shoes from then on too.