River Dog

Bye Bye Biden. Hello New Puppy.

Our new puppy wades into the warm water, wiggling his brown body, wetting his paws and wagging his tiny tail.  I hold the leash loosely to encourage his curiosity. We adopted the dog three days ago. Today we take him to a local lake for a family swim.

Soon Jess stays with the dog so I can I swim with our son, sister-in-law, and niece. The water is shallow by the shore, but quickly deepens. Soon I’m in over my head. There are no lifeguards, so I keep close watch on the kids, ages eight and five. They can swim well, but not as well as they think.  After a while, Carrie offers to watch them so I can practice swimming in open water.

In six days, I’ll swim across the Hudson River—for the annual Great Newburgh to Beacon Hudson River Swim (sponsor me here) made famous by Pete Seeger.

I’ve now been swimming laps for two years and for the past month, I’ve been training with an Adult Swim group in a local town pool.

But I still have virtually no experience swimming in open water.

I swim toward a pontoon boat moored in the lake center and a granite cliff looming in the distance. The water is brown, but warmer and clearer than the Long Island Sound, where I swam last weekend, and the Atlantic Ocean, where I swam two weekends ago. When I breathe, I glimpse green—the forest that rings the lake. My body is less buoyant in freshwater than saltwater. And there’s no current here, so I can swim straighter.

After twenty strokes, I stop and swim back. I don’t want to swim too far alone.

A boat—sleek, shiny silver, and torpedo-shaped—motors into shore. My pulse quickens.

We’re trespassing on private property where the signs say: No Swimming, No Pets.

Fortunately, the pilot—a shirtless guy in his 40s—greets us warmly. We chat while he attaches an inflatable raft with a rope to the stern of the boat. His teenage daughter climbs onto the raft. Then they zoom away, the raft bouncing on the water like a bucking bronco.

Later, Jess brings the puppy to join us. She releases his leash, cups her hands beneath his belly, and walks into the water. Soon he starts doggy paddling.  My heart swells.

Bye Bye Biden, Hello Puppy

Hours later, President Joe Biden announces he will not be seeking re-election in November, bowing to mounting pressure from his party, the public, and the polls, the drumbeat driven by increasingly urgent concerns about his physical and mental capacity to defeat former President Donald Trump.

Like many Democrats, I wish Biden had bowed out earlier. Way earlier. But I respect his reluctance and his tenacity. He devoted his political career to a singular pursuit—the presidency—which he achieved in his late seventies, after decades of defeats, humiliations, and tragedies that would have derailed anyone less determined.

I cannot fathom the agony of Biden’s decision.

But I can empathize.

Agreeing to adopt a dog has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life.

In a way, it feels more monumental than the ostensibly more momentous milestones of marriage and fatherhood. I had always envisioned myself as a husband and a father. But I never dreamed I’d own a dog. In fact, I was certain I’d never own a dog—or any pet.

As a kid, I feared dogs. When a friend’s dog died, I didn’t get why he so was upset, crying and throwing a baseball repeatedly against his bedroom wall.  In graduate school, I wrote a short story about a dog-fearing guy who reluctantly watches his best friend’s dog for the weekend. When the dog attacks, the petrified protagonist bashes his skull with a cast iron skillet, killing the dog and destroying his friendship. The plot was pure fiction, but the underlying terror was truth.

Gradually, the fear abated. Through repeated exposure, I learned to tolerate dogs. I joined friends and family on dog walks. I witnessed how canine companions could bring them purpose and joy. Still, I had no desire to own my own dog. Ultimately I still found dogs annoying and their owners inscrutable. 

“I’m not a dog person,” I told myself, almost as a point of pride. “I’m a people person.”

Then my son started begging for a dog. Perhaps predictably, my dogmatic certainty shifted.

Last winter, when Jess asked me if we could take care of a friend’s puppy for the weekend, I reluctantly agreed. To my surprise, it wasn’t so bad. I enjoyed our family walks and hikes and the glee the dog evoked in my son. Still, dog ownership still felt like too much work, stress, and commitment—financial and emotional. I wasn’t ready. So I hedged and stalled.

But the Convince Dad to Adopt a Dog campaign continued. And I continued to soften.

This spring, we attended the world-famous Westminster Dog Show, where we watched dogs compete to dive from a dock into a water tank, and border collies sprint along see-saws, weave through pole like slalom skiers, and literally jump through hoops.

The following weekend, we attended a dog adoption event at the town park; or rather, Jess and our son and niece attended while I swam laps at the adjacent municipal pool and joined them afterward.

For weeks, they obsessively scrolled dog adoption websites, looking for the perfect pet.

Finally, they found the one they loved: A puppy from Puerto Rico, one of 600,000 stray dogs—a.k.a. satos—on the island. He was cute. And his story was moving: Apparently,  he was abandoned the mountains, where he was rescued, crying and alone. Now he was with a foster family and ready for adoption. And we’ve have to move fast or we’d lose him.

I felt how much Jess and our son wanted not only a dog, but this specific dog.

I still didn’t feel ready to own a dog. But I was ready enough.

Ready Enough

Monday, 7:15 A.M. I touch the pool wall, gasping, and slug water from a bottle on the deck. It’s the last week of Adult Swim camp and I’ve been swimming hard for an hour.

The woman in the next lane asks if I finished the set.

“Yes,” I say.

“Congratulations,” she says, smiling.

While I drip dry and catch my breath, Coach Meg approaches.

“I’m pushing you,” she says. “A mile is 1,650 yards. You did 2,300 yards today. You’ve already done more than your river swim.”

I still don’t feel totally ready to swim one mile across the Hudson River in five days.

But I’m ready enough.

On Saturday, I’ll be swimming by myself, but I won’t feel alone.

I’ll be buoyed by friends, including the fabulous Dan Friedman, and family, which now includes a puppy from Puerto Rico, who is also learning to swim.

The adoption agency assigned the dog a name, but we wanted to name him ourselves.

For weeks, we floated ideas for names, some serious, others silly. None stuck until finally our son suggested a name all three of us agreed on:

River.