The Mile Win

Other swimmers were finishing and the crowd just kept cheering as the stragglers touched the rope. There was a dock jutting out into the river where the buoys and rope were tied. The man with the megaphone, who had been at the beginning of the race, was at the end of the dock yelling at the swimmers to come over. I saw Burnie, Mother, Mrs. Orwig, and Mr. Ashby standing next to the megaphone man.

When I reached the dock and climbed out of the water, I was surrounded by all the other swimmers. We were dripping wet and people were trying to hand us towels. As the other swimmers moved towards the grass on the river bank, Mr. Ashby grabbed my hand and walked me towards the river end of the dock. At the end of the dock stood a man in a suit. He looked like he was hot enough to melt. In one hand he had a handkerchief to wipe his face with and that little piece of cloth was dripping wet. In his other hand he had a trophy. My trophy!

Mother was still clapping her hands together and beaming. Mrs. Orwig was clapping, too. The man in the suit handed Mr. Ashby the trophy and took the megaphone.

“May I have the attention of the spectators, please?” he shouted. “Welcome to the Des Moines Tribune’s Men’s Mile Swim.” He looked quickly at me and corrected himself with, “I mean, welcome to the Des Moines Tribune’s Mile Swim. We do have a little lady here. And she is our WINNER!”

Mr. Ashby held my hand in the air, like I had just won a boxing match. “Mable Hall,” he whispered to the man in the suit. “Her name is Mable Hall. She just graduated from North High.”

The man repeated it exactly into the megaphone. “Her name is Mable Hall and she just graduated from North High,” and he added, “right here in Des Moines.” He kept going, “Presenting the first-place trophy to Miss Hall is Ted Ashby, writer for the Des Moines Tribune.”

More clapping. Mother was going to have sore hands. Inside the cup of the trophy were a blue ribbon and a ten-dollar bill. Burnie and I had been joking, but that was exactly how it turned out! I gave a little bow and thanked the man in the suit and Mr. Ashby. We walked off the dock and into the grass, moving towards the road. Mr. Ashby offered us a ride back to our house and we accepted. Along the way, mother handed me my hearing aid and I tucked it in the front of my swimsuit, securing the earpiece in my ear. It would have been nice to have it on during the trophy presentation, but I was dripping wet and that could have ruined my hearing aid. I was pretty tired; Mother and Mrs. Orwig looked worn out also.

When we pulled up to our driveway, Mr. Ashby got out of the car, too. I thought he was just dropping us off.

“Miss Hall, did you forget that I want to get your photograph? This is going to be a great story. I’m a little late for an appointment now, but I will telephone you tomorrow to ask you some questions if that’s okay?” asked Mr. Ashby. “I’d like to take your picture now, while you are in your swimsuit.” Then he turned to Mother and asked, “Is it okay if I take a picture of your daughter in her swimsuit for the paper?”

“Certainly!” Mother laughed. “There are so many pictures of her in her suit from swimming meets I can’t even count them. There are several in the North High yearbook, too.”

“Well, I suppose there are. That was kind of a silly question,” said Mr. Ashby.

He asked me to stand under the big tree in Burnie’s front yard. It was still mostly green and the front porch looked tidy in the background. He had me pose with my trophy in one hand, with the money sticking out of it, and my ribbon in the other hand. I finally remembered to take off my swim cap before he took the picture.

He started taking pictures and Burnie started laughing. It looked like he was trying to stifle them, but the chortles kept coming. Mr. Ashby was smiling, but not laughing. He had to hold still to take the photograph! I suddenly remembered something. This was exactly like the pose that Burnie and I had discussed when I was wondering what the first prize would be! Burnie had already found out from Mr. Ashby what first prize was before we had that talk. That rascal; he knew and talked all about it like he had no idea. Well, at least he had been confident that I would win, and I did.

I said, “Burnie, I should punch you! You knew what the prizes were all along when we were talking the other day.”

“So what? I knew you would win. I just wanted to have some fun with you,” he said in defense of himself. He laughed out loud this time. Mr. Ashby didn’t get the joke, but Burnie told him about our conversation and he joined us in our amusement.

“I have to run now, kids, so I will call you tomorrow, Mable,” said Mr. Ashby as he turned to go to his car. “I’ll call early, about nine o’clock.”

We waved goodbye from Burnie’s front porch. I went home to bathe and change; I had to get that river water off of me. I told Burnie I’d meet him on his back porch in about an hour. It was too hot to shoot baskets but we could visit and make plans for tomorrow night. We were planning on watching the fireworks display put on near the Iowa Capitol building. We could see it every year from the backside of Burnie’s house. The fireworks always looked so bright when they shone on the golden dome. As I thought about that, I imagined Dad watching them from up in Heaven.

The next day turned out to be a wonderfully traditional Fourth of July. There was a big carnival and auto races at the Iowa Fairgrounds. Riverview Park was packed and there was a super parade downtown. Burnie and I went to Riverview for a little while; we rode the carousel and the roller coaster. I had enough water yesterday so we skipped the beach. And we did stop by to check on the monkeys at Monkey Island! Mother and the Orwigs had a delicious picnic dinner for us that we ate in the Orwig’s back yard. Then we just sat around in the shade, waiting for it to get dark. Burnie’s house had a pretty good-sized balcony on the second floor of their house, off the back bedroom. We sat on the balcony and could see the fireworks at the Capitol perfectly. It was one of the benefits of living in Highland Park on the near-north side of Des Moines.

The next couple of weeks went fairly quickly. My picture was in the paper the Sunday following the mile swim. It read pretty much like the first article Mr. Ashby wrote. You know, how unusual it was for a girl to be doing a race like that, about my state records again, about me going to the University of Iowa in the fall, and about me wanting to be a sportswriter. I sent one to Grandma Von Dornum in Steamboat Rock and put one in my scrapbook, along with the first article. I decided that was the last thing I was going to put in my scrapbook. It had been my high school scrapbook. I was going to take a little bit of my swimming lesson money and buy a new scrapbook and use it for college. I was getting ready to fill a whole new book!

Unfortunately, and sadly, it ended up not being the last entry in my high school scrapbook. There was another tragedy about to happen in my life; one that might change my life again.