Plunging into the new year
Matt Unrau
Last week dozens of crazies decided that the best way to celebrate the first day of 2010 was to jump in tothe Clark Fork River featuring water that was just a few degrees north of freezing.
The question most of you reading in your temperature controlled house sitting in your comfy recliner are probably wondering is why do people do this?
Do they make the decision when they wake up in the morning and tear the 2009 calendar off their wall. Or maybe it is entirely premeditated. As I strolled around the dock the majority of the people there definitely admitted to them being returners to the frigid feat.
As for the reason one lady simply mentioned that she would regret not doing it. As for me, I think it’s because they are crazy. So knowing what a jumbled mess I have swimming around in my own looney head of a brain I decided it would be a good idea to join them.
Since I wanted to take pictures of all of the leapers I had to wait until everyone else was done before I would get my chance. This gave me plenty of time to think about what I was doing. I also had a front row seat to the look of shock and horror on people’s faces as they struggled madly to get out of the water.
This look would appear on the jumper’s faces an average of 0.2 seconds after their feet touched the frigid waters. This should’ve been more than enough to dissuade a sane person, but I was committed and pretended to ignore their shrieks of pain.
After an agonizing wait it was my turn for this unholy baptism. I stood on the edge of the deck with my hawaiian stylized swimming trunks staring at the pools of water in between chunks of ice.
Luckily with anything like this the thing you have to remember is not to hesitate and just go for it. So with that running in my head I gave a whoop and a holler and conducted a perfectly executed cannonball into the water.
Close to 0.3 seconds later I had only one thought in my head; Get out! Spinning quickly in the water I grabbed the Thompson Falls dock and hauled my frozen behind out onto the dock.
As soon as i got my body out of the water and onto the dock my brain started to work again and i realized that now that I was out of the water the actual deed wasn’t half as bad as the buildup before the event.
This is what I was thinking while I stood shivering on the dock. However, subconsciously this may have been the cause of my body thinking the cold air outside was 100 times better than the water I had just been in.
However, more than anything else, I just felt like I was on top of the world. Maybe this was the true reason people did it, just so they could feel like they conquered something and feel that zest for life. So at least for one day in a row they can feel like they’re living their life to the maximum in hopes that they will spend the rest of the year standing on the edge of the abyss daring to leap into the unknown.