Fear Factor

Another summer my family went to the cabin by the lake with my (dad's brother and his family of 5 kids), Uncle Raymond.  The cabin belonged to his in-laws who were very sweet people.  His father in-law's name was Carson, a fun grandpa type that liked to tease the kids.  My grandma that lived with us was invited to come along for the day, she loved to take rides and be outside.  At home she would often sit on the porch in the evening, this was our nightly entertainment, and just enjoy.  So we took the trip to the cabin and we got to wear our bathing suits in the car under our regular clothes.  That was fun!!  It never took much to make me happy!!  That day everyone was in their suits ready for the lake.  Dad drove the car down to the beach so grandma could watch us and enjoy the beautiful view and sounds of the area.  Since I'm a bit leery of the water to say the least, I always stayed back to see what to expect.  Amen!  All Uncle Raymond's kids could swim and out in the lake was a floating dock thingy that had a ladder on one side.  The kids would climb up on the dock and jump back into the water.  That was it?  Once you do that a few times I would think it to get boring.  Well, Carson saw my sister Diane, she was standing in the water only up to her knees and watched everyone on the floating dock having fun.  So Carson came over and picked Diane up (she was about 9 or 10 years old) and proceeded to carry her out to the dock, or so it looked.  When they got out to where the water was just above his waist, He tossed Diane into the lake where it was deep.  She could not swim, and Carson did not know, or he would never have been so cruel, I'm sure.  Right at this time, Uncle Raymond was advancing toward me telling me he was going to get me out on that dock with his kids.  Yikes!!  I ran as fast as my 4year old legs could go and high-tailed it for grandma and the car.  Without a doubt, I knew grandma would protect me!!  Good thing I had been very observant and stayed back, because this gave me a head start back to the car!  Never have I opened that car door so fast, jumped in and just as I pushed the door locked down and looked up to the window, there he was.  He called me a little shit and demanded I unlock the door.  Was he crazy, because I knew I wasn't crazy enough to let him in!!!  Thank goodness dad had not rolled down the back windows of the car, and survival instinct took me over.  Promptly, I saw Uncle Raymond's eyes check out the status of the other back door.  My eyes jumped right out of my skull!!  Holy cow it was not locked!  He had more ground to cover than I did, so I screamed, "NO", and scrambled over that seat just in the absolute nick of time.  Phhew!!  Again he called me a little shit and started to reach through the window to unlock the door.  See, he couldn't do that on the other side cause grandma was setting in that seat with her arm out the window, and grandma arms were not so little.  Just as he reached the lock to pull it up, I screamed again, (NO, HELP GRANDMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and she gruffly told him to leave me alone and get back out to the water to watch his own kids.  Nanner, nanner, nanner!!  Only after he left, I scrawled over the front seat and slid down next to grandma, and cried till I feel asleep.  It felt so safe with grandma giggly warm arm around me.  But I woke up in a panic! Diane!  What or where was Diane?  Did they hurt her?  But when I focused to look out to the floating dock, there she was sitting on top.  Man, I almost started to cry with relief when I spotted her bathing suit with her still in it alive!  Uncle Raymond had her jump off into his arms and he was trying to teach her to swim.  Our fear of water was too great neither of us, to this day, have ever over come that demon enough to try lessons.  Even when I shower, I stand with my back to the faucet so the water won't get in my face.  I swear, if it wasn't for my grandma, these pages would not exist.