Part 11 brings us to the train station at Lugano. Before we embark on our journey to Stutgart, I would like to share a little side story about Locarnos' high dive. I would periodically go to a little town about 30 minutes from Ascona to go swimming and platform diving at this olympic outdoor natatorium. As soon as I saw it my stomach began to clench with the knowledge that I would be pushing myself a little closer to Culhanes' side of the street. The pool is a dark indigo because of its extreme depth. It took me all summer to finally be able to swim to the bottom of this 15meter canyon. The unique attraction is the professional divers that train here. It's common to see triple somersaults from the 30meter tower. There are incremental towers that lead up to this Mt. Everest of leaps. I would begin on the low board and practice the dives I knew. Then progressively build my way up to where I was literally shaking upon the ascent. The single motivating factor that drives me is that there are kids younger than me performing immensely more difficult dives. Once you start up a ladder there is no coming down because there is a line of divers behind you. Today to add insult to injury there are even mini trampolines to make it possible to jump higher. I do my dives and take a break to watch and meditate the next level. Today is the first day I successfully complete a 11/2 forward somersault in the pike position off the 1 meter. I entered the water like a letter down a postal chute. I now know why the necessity of the depth. After careful consideration I decide to advance to the 3 meter where I perform this dive equally well with the exception of the added adrenaline. I surface and swim to the side to rest up mentally and gather my courage. The interesting factor here is the mental place I need to put myself in order to not freak out. So after enough internal deliberation I scale the ladder to the 10 meter platform where there are world class divers performing everything from press handstand drop dives to forward gainers with multiple somersault and twists. My turn is next and I decide that i will just do a normal swan dive to get used to this new height. I leap off the concrete platform keeping my head and back in a tight arch. My legs are pinned together with my ass squeezing hard enough to make change if I placed a Franc in there. My body slowly tilts as I hang for a brief moment and then fly to the dark blue target arms out stretched as the name of the dive implies. Then I quickly snap my thumbs and fingers interlocking directly over my head and pinned by my ears. My hands hit the water with the force that makes it feel as if it were ice. My body rockets to the bottom and my ears start to ache with the depth. I quickly reach to my nose to equalize the external pressure with the internal. I hear a loud squeaking sound as if a pod of dolphins were on a party line inside my sinuses. Releasing my nose I look up to see the sunlight dappling on the far away surface. As if by some Netunian guardian angel , I remember that to swim straight up is to invite a possible terminal collision with an oncoming diver. I then turn and swim underwater to the far side of the pool. Climbing out my heart is pumping with the residue of adreniline still flowing through me. Grabbing my towel I sit and watch as I realize just how dangerous the next towers will be. My dad comes to me and says " We're leaving in about 30 minutes so do whatever it is you got to do and be ready." I nod and speed up my internal clock to synchronize with this push of time constraint. I speed up the dialogue and walk slowly to the ladder and begin climbing. by passing the 10 meter platform I go to the 20 meter summit and am only one of three people up here with the birds. A kaleidescope of butterflies are beating the rhythm of destiny in my stomach. I step forward and make the wise decision to jump and not dive this time as I look down at what appears to be a blue postage stamp awaiting me. I step off making my body into the best impression of a number two pencil that I can. There is only air rushing past me as I plummet faster and faster to what I now know is not a soft entry. Any appendage sticking out will be taken in penalty of technical execution. I hit and I feel a numbing slap to my feet as if I was hit by a 2x4. A jarring electric zing travels all the way up to the base of my skull as I painfully enter the water. Hitting the bottom I turn over and swim out and away from this suicidal spot of death and discomfort. I get out, shake and recover as I search for the right answer about the last platform of 30 meters. Rolling over in my mind the events of my previous leaps I quickly decide that wearing sneakers and a t-shirt maybe the better part of valor. I know if I wait any longer I will talk myself out of this insanity. So I don my meager protective wear and start up the ladder possibly for the last time. I say out loud "I do this and everything else will be cake by comparison. I just have to stay vertical and squeeze my ass." My legs are burning from the climb this time. I reach the top too scared to stand erect only to find a man sitting there in deep meditation. I sit across from him and am in no hurry to go first. After a while I start wondering just what he's preparing for . Then as if he hears my thoughts he bounds up and starts to hop around in a dance to warm up. He looks at me and my sneakers . He winks and gives me the thumbs up and a nod. He reaches for a colorful towel he brought with him and ties it around his neck as a cape. He shakes out his hands and starts yelling to someone at the side of the pool. A man pick up a mega phone and start talking and introducing this diver . It quickly becomes evident that it's some sort of highly technical but comical stunt about to be performed. There is a routine in Italian but I can't make any of it out. He then pretends to be drunk and runs to the edge and leans over as if to jump and then suddenly stops and pushes his rear end back and swinging his arms in an incredible display of controlled panic. He pats his heart as if saying " Oh boy that was a close one." He goes on to dance with the danger of balked attempts every time making the audience and me for that matter hold their breath and pray for him. One time he steps off and quickly pirouettes on one foot and falls only to catch the platform with one hand. He comically kicks his legs as he struggles to climb back up on the platform. At this point I would gladly jump off because watching him is infinitely more terrifying. He then kicks a handstand and walks to the edge falls over turns and some how hangs on by one hand. Dangling he cries for help then does the struggling routine again. Climbing back up to the plat form one elbow at a time then rolling as if he just had enough energy to make it. He then jumps to attention whistle the funeral march and runs with the cape flying in the breeze and leaps high and away from the platform. He grabs his ankles behind him in an arch. If he lands like this he's dead for sure. At the last second and I do mean last he release his feet and snaps into the tightest pke position I've ever seen. He cuts through the water smooth leaving only his colorful towel floating behind him. Several seconds later he surfaces and swims to the side. Before getting out he whistles and points to me . He's waving for me to jump. I take the invitation as my only chance of actually getting of this birds nest. I step off pin my arms, tuck my chin into my chest and fall. When I hit I hear a loud pop. I'm at the bottom in a blink of an eye and I swim up and surface to hear clapping. It's obviously for the great diver. But I pretend a little of it's for me. I get out of the pool to realize that my sneakers are not only not on my feet but up past my knees. My feet have torn through the the soles and the sneakers traveled up stopping at my thighs. My feet don't hurt and I m shaking with exhileration and relief that my day of daredevil stunts is over. I see my dad waving and gesture back that I'm on my way there. It takes a while to wiggle the sneakers off of me and get to the powder blue Fiat we drove here in. On the way back from Locarno my Dad says "That was a pretty big jump. Have you done that before?" I smile and say" Yeah I guess it was. No, that was my fist time. Did you see what happened to my sneakers?" I hold them up to show my Dad and see the confused look on his face . He asks " You jumped with your sneakers on?" I nod and say "The soles of my feet are still tingling from hitting the water the first time." My Dad says " Then we better stop around here and get you a pair for the trip ." I say " O. k. I 'll jump in back and change." We get to the shoe store and I don' t see the brands I like. Then my Dad says they use a different system for measuring the shoes. After deliberating about our fashions differences we agree on the ones in the picture above. I change and we head to Lugano for our journey to Stuttgart. It's 452 KM and about 5 hours by train. There is something special and memorable about long train trips. It gives you time to get into a rhythm of life like no other. My mother once told me a story about my dad. It goes like this . My mother asks " How come you never tell me about your day when you come home?" To which my Dad answers "I talk to you in my mind, from my heart on the way home every night, and when I get here I feel like we're caught up with the tedium of the days events. Then we're free to discuss more interesting things than the busy work that went on in my head on my train ride home." For some reason this comforted my mother immensely. There are also times when my mither will say "Julius why didn't you tell me..." To which he replies" I did, just not verbally, it must have been on the train ride home." There are obviously things about relationships I don't understand yet. Come to think of it just for getting away with that makes my dad smarter than the average bear.After buying the colorful high top Chuck Taylor by Converse we go to Lugano from Locarno. Lugano is describes as such by wikipedia: "Lugano [1] is a lakeside city in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of southern Switzerland. Part of a temperate micro-climate, Lugano offers palm trees, picturesque boulevards, stunning views of the lake and the Alps, and plenty of opportunity for outdoor and indoor activities. Lugano also makes a good base for visiting other cities and sites in the area. The city is a pleasant place to relax in the summertime and is only half an hour away from Lake Como." The train ride takes us through classic Switzerland alps scenery and delivers us to Stuttdart, Germany. We are here to pick up my Dads' very first Mercedes. Along the ride my Dad as usual is an encyclopedia of knowledge about every question I have dealing with history and geography. My dad is very tight lipped about his prewar experiences. I figure some doors maybe better left closed. He will tell me when he's ready.I will get his permission before I write about what we discus on this ride. We spend the night in Stuttgart before going to the factory. It has been told to me that I kicked so badly in bed that night that my dad spends the entire night getting out from on side and walking around to get in the other only to be attacked again from this side . This process went on all night so I am told. I can attest to none of this since I don't remember. There is some evidence in the fact that my daughter Ammba behaves identically. So I guess there is a certain genetic karma being paid here. What I remember most is the process if watching the Mercedes being assembled by hand. Each step is explained and demonstrated until the finished product is delivered and handed to the new owner. We packed our luggage and drove back to Ascona. My typical pleading continued although our speed limit was greatly reduced because of breaking in a new engine. I humbly volunteered my services in the capacity of alerting him when he approached the designated maximum speed. We arrived safe and sound with a brand new Mercedes later to be shipped back to New York. Before I return this story to New York I will mention one other story. In Ascona there are various statues along the lake walk. That are placed on 3 foot square concrete pedestals. For some reason one of the pedestals was empty. In an effort to keep up my gymnastics training I would press and hold a handstand on this base for minutes at a time often attracting a crowd. Because of school I needed to return early from the trip, while my dad stayed behind tying up loose ends. About a week after I arrive home I receive a letter and photo from my dad. He goes into an epic mystery of the stolen statue of Ascona. I don't remember the details, but it would seem they finally replaced the statue in honor of the previous human one. The photo is of that statue. Today is fathers' day and I would like to thank my father who keeps getting smarter every year. It's a little joke we share about parent and child perceptions of one another over the years. So Dad compared to this trip you're a veritable genius. I love you and am grateful to have you in my life. We are at present planning another secret father-son trip to someplace cold . There will be more details forthcoming. Thanks and good night . Jody
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