For those of you old enough to have been alive and alert when the movie Jaws came out, maybe you are like me and this movie SCARRED YOU FOR LIFE. I was not quite 7 years old when the film was released, June 20, 1975. It handed me a big fright just to watch the movie trailer on TV.
It scared me even more than those old Mad Butcher commercials. You know, where they have that maniacal laughing monster of a man with the stained apron and the cleaver? How is that supposed to make me want to shop at your store? “Oh yeah, please give me some of those fresh cuts, Mr. Deranged Choppy Guy!” Naw. No. Nuh-uh!
So yes, I had issues with the gigantic shark and his murky water, lurky bite-pounce music. It planted the seeds of illogical anxiety that would blossom for decades to come.
Friends want to go to the beach? “Cool cool cool, y’all can get on out there in the water… and I’ll… just get my feet wet by the edge and watch our… um towels.”
I go to the lake with a group and someone says, “Ooh Look! A turtle is swimming right near us.”
My response is, “He needs to stay over there! In his lane. Out of the human section of the lake. He’s not obeying the rules of the buoys. STAY ON YOUR SIDE, RAPHAEL!” I told you. The Jaws movie really did a number on me.
In my 20s, I went to Universal Studios in Los Angeles and the tour guide had about 40 of us passengers on a trolley, showing us different scenes and props from movies throughout history. This guy is standing at the front, telling punny jokes and pointing things out to us wide-eyed tourists. As I remember, there was also someone dressed as King Kong, mingling and getting reactions from people. It’s 1990 and we’re giggling and taking pictures with our 110 cameras, having a great time. Okay for you younger folks, 110 is not how many cameras there were, it was the type of camera that most people owned. And it was only barely better quality than a Polaroid instant camera – and it wasn’t instant. You had to take your film to the store and wait a week or so to get it developed, and only then can you find out that you took out-of-focus pictures or had your thumb in the frame the entire time. But that’s not my point.
My point is, the trolley comes around a corner and there’s a pond. Not an ocean or lake. Just a little cute body of water, like one that maybe has a small pier for fishing and gets restocked every year. So cute. CUE THE MUSIC. You know the music.
Dunnunt.
You don’t even have to be a certain age to know this music.
Dunnunt Dunnunt.
As I write this, the Jaws theme has been used for a full 46 years…
DunnaDunnaDunnaDunnant!
…to signal that there’s some serious, possibly fatal danger coming, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it except make a noise like an omelette, because you’re about to be breakfast.
God bless composer John Williams! What an extremely talented individual he is. He’s got a cinematic resume that includes composing scores for the Indiana Jones series, the Star Wars series, Schindler’s List, E.T., Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, the list goes on. But he also composed the music for Jaws. It’s the low, long breaths through the tuba that kick off the blood rush for the listener. It’s the steady quickening of the alternating notes that simulates rigor mortis in one’s arms and legs. It’s the bass and cello joining forces in the ensuing cacophony that heats up one’s rib cage.
Listen to me when I say to you that it doesn’t matter if you’re in the ocean, or if you’re in a trolley next to a manmade pond at a theme park – you’re going to scream when the animatronic shark pops up out of the water. Yes you are going to jump, even if it is moving slower than your drink coming out of a soda machine. And come to think of it, it kind of made a similar sound – gzzzz clunk – and even if it’s actually only a puppet of a shark, with some metal supports in the water. You’re going to get tense. I mean it’s still a nice puppet, don’t get me wrong. And scary. I was scared in the trolley.
Now note that I never saw the whole Jaws movie. I saw the trailer when I was six, and in my teen years when the TV version came out, I tried to be one of the cool kids and watch it. I didn’t make it past maybe the first ten minutes before I decided to go to the kitchen and make popcorn… pizza… nachos… a triple-layer cake… anything to stay in the kitchen, away from the imminent carnage. I just couldn’t step up to the plate. Well, the kitchen plate, yes. But not the metaphorical one.
Why am I telling you all this?
Alright, so some of y’all know that I joined the River Center (rec center) in Benton and have been swimming for exercise. I like to swim. I had lessons when I was small, and I was lucky to grow up in a neighborhood that had a community pool. We had wonderful times cannonballing off the diving board, playing Marco/Polo, and re-enacting the Baby Ruth scene from the movie Caddyshack.
I had been trying to talk myself into doing something to address my bonus pandemic weight, boost my general health, and also squelch some animosity toward my bathroom scale, my mirror, certain pairs of jeans, you get the idea. Swimming is a natural fit for me, with low-impact options. I don’t have to learn equipment and I don’t even have to sweat.
Perfect.
I got in the water the first time and I was immediately consumed with a competitive spirit, seeing two people that are several years older than myself, zipping back and forth, doing laps in the lanes. (Staying in their lanes like that dang turtle should have.)
Well I overdid it that first day, still trying to catch my breath on the drive home. I learned that swimming was a lot more exercise (for me, for now, as a beginner) than I thought it would be.
On my second trip, I went with a friend. She knew that I was trying to take it slower now, and we chatted during our swim and maybe didn’t get as good a workout, but I was focused on catching up with each other’s lives and anyway, it still counts.
A couple of days ago, I went for my third swim. I did as usual – put all my things in a pile, and walked to the side of the pool and got in. You can pick a lane on the edge, or you can duck under the dividers and pick one toward the middle.
On this morning, I chose to make it simple and just stay in the outside lane. There was only one other person swimming and he was on the other side of the pool.
So I dip to my shoulders in the shallow end (woo, cold) and decide I’m going to start with a backstroke. I push off from the side and my ears dip in the water. I hear a weird sound. It was squeaky and flappy and knocking all at once.
I realize how swimming pools work. I realize there are sounds associated with the proper function of a pool. But these particular sounds hit me from an angle that I just wasn’t expecting early in the morning and I paused in the water for half a sec. I gave it another backstroke, my ears dipped down and I heard the noise again.
Now, about one-quarter of the way down the lane, the depth drops off quickly from a comfy humanly five feet to a you-better-really-for-sure-know-how-to-swim eight feet, and then deeper. I do know how to swim. But it’s been rare and not recent since it was necessary for me to swim.
And that sound just struck me.
I told myself to get over it and swim to the other end of the lane. Once there, I was a little winded due to the early hour maybe, but also maybe due to the fact that I was thinking about sharks!
It makes no sense whatsoever. There is no reason for me to believe that there might be sharks in this pool. I can see right through the water. It’s not even a natural body of water, nor is it connected to one. And on top of that, this pool is located in the center of a state that is landlocked. There is no body of salt water for hundreds of miles.
Still… that noise.
And now I’m on the end with a depth of 12 feet, hanging onto the side. I have to swim back. I talked myself down from the heights in my head.
“There are no sharks here. You are in no danger. They don’t allow sharks to become members here, and they are not even selling day passes at this time. And if they did, sharks don’t have money, so therefore, no sharks.” I made it back to the shallow end.
Still talking to myself, I reason that this is very silly, and I am a grown person and I’m going to swim my butt down to the end of the lane and back a second time. And I did do that. But I could not convince myself to do it a third time. So I swam to the five foot mark.
It makes no sense but I swam just to the point where I could still stand, and then swam back to my starting spot. Because in the same way that monsters can’t get you if you’re under the blanket, swimming pool sharks can’t chomp your leg off if you’re able to touch your feet on the pool floor.
It’s true. It’s science. I did two of the mini-laps and then went home.
Later, I posted to social media that 15 minutes of swimming was better than no minutes. Someone messaged me and was asking questions about membership at the River Center. I referred to an informational guide that a Benton Parks and Rec employee had given me.
It tells about all sorts of parks amenities. They even have a swim team for kids. Yep. It talks about it in the guide on page 8, and says it’s a program during the summer, it’s for kids between ages 4-18. And sweet mother of pearl, the dang program is called the Benton Sharks! They do have Sharks as members! I KNEW IT!
