This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR, Radio Reader’s Book Club The book is “Elevations” by Max McCoy
In Wichita, where the Arkansas River runs over a low-head dam under the 21st Street Bridge, the river claimed the life of 24 year old seminary student, Brian Bergkamp, who was kayaking in a 5-person group, 2 men and 3 women, during high water when they paddled over that low-head dam. It doesn’t look like that much, but it is, quotes McCoy, a perfect drowning machine. Bergkamp was the only one not wearing a personal floatation device.
His body was lost until later when Max McCoy’s paddling group spots it by chance. At the funeral, a friend of the family says Bergkamp was a hero who had taken off his own life jacket to give to a woman in trouble, saving her. But why, asks McCoy, who has seen enough of preventable death.
The should all have had their PFDs – personal floatation devices. They should never have been on that river in those conditions. They should never have gone over that low-head dam. The city could have, but didn’t, close off the route during the fast, high water.
Personal protection devices and methods, like masks, vaccinations, distancing. Not rocket science. Not power grabs. Just hard-won practical, simple and obvious methods to prevent paying the price of death. Death doesn’t give refunds. In 1975, the Loucks paid that price.
On the 12th of May 1975, a young couple was charged with not enough life preservers and overloading a small boat. I watched as Justice William VanNostrand dismissed the charges while the neatly dressed and reserved young couple, Preston and Sheila Loucks, sat close against the front of the justice’s desk. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. It seemed they barely knew where to look. They didn’t bring a lawyer. They were there to accept anything the court would hand them.
They were the last case on the docket that evening. Fayette Town Justice William VanNostrand didn’t blame the police for writing the summons. That was their part of the job. The justice said, “Any further prosecution would have no useful purpose … the price has been paid.”
And really, what could possibly add that was worse?
One month before, on April 15th, Preston, 29, and Sheila, 30, were in a small boat on a cheerful outing on Seneca Lake. Seneca Lake is 28 miles long, 1.86 miles wide and, as much as 650 feet deep. So deep that the Navy has a submarine sonar test and calibration station near Dresden.
The Loucks and their four small children were in that boat, Kelly Sue 9, Preston Jr. 8, Craig 7, and Brian 4. The boat capsized. Preston and Sheila were rescued but not their children.
Personal protective gear doesn’t work after the fact.
Today, I picked up a solid-state drive from a favorite dance studio with one of the best youth dance companies I know of in the area, often as good as some of the professional companies. The owner, Jennifer Tierney, is also a fashion designer who creates marvelous fashions, which allow full flowing movement based on Jennifer’s experience as a dancer. She’s danced with ballet companies across the country.
Jennifer told me she had just lost three of her top people, her front desk person, her fashion company manager and Laura who has been a mainstay for years as dancer, as teacher and dance company manager and who has a little girl. They all told her they are re-examining their lives. At the same time Jennifer’s apparel company, Jeanne Nuage, is growing. She is moving her sewing operations in late August 2021, if she can.
They have all been vaccinated and masked, but living and working during COVID brings constant worry, and uncertainties. If you work with a lot of people, you are constantly in an exposed position. Infection numbers are going up again thanks to a new variant with more variants on the way and thanks to unmasking too early, allowing COVID to regroup.
As an adjunct, I remembered enough times when I would come near a student to assist in computer lab, catching sickness in one sudden breath. Every teacher knows that moment of invasion. You know exactly when you get that sense in your nose that you’ve got another two weeks of another new cold. Why did that student show up sick today?
COVID? You won’t know for days whether you’ve been invaded. Maybe a couple weeks. There are common-sense preventive measures. It is not so hard.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.
