The Gift of Life
By Robert Cheeks

EAST LIVERPOOL,OHIO--In the 1950s, my family lived amidst a mix of Irish, Italian, English, German, Jewish,Greek, and Ukranian families. It was a decidedly working class neighborhood that provided a labor pool for the local potteries, steel mills, and associated businesses of the upper Ohio Valley.

My favorite pal among the horde of children in the locale was Bruce Smith.

We hit it off right away as five-yearolds. Smitty was the kid who got straight A's without any significant exertion, understood fractions, read all the Hardy Boys mysteries, and was talented with his hands.

While I spastically smeared glue on my scale models of Sherman tanks and Nazi fighter planes, he was altering the plastic bodies of his car kits to make the doors swing open and the steering wheel turn.

Bruce laid out a scale model of the Pittsburgh Pirate's Forbes Field in the basement of his house; complete with a carved wooden bat that pivoted on the floor thanks to rubber bands and springs. There were baselines, a painted infield and outfield, and bricks representing infielders and baskets standing in for outfielders. All you needed was a marble and you were in business for hours.

St. Aloysius Catholic Church and School was the center of our little universe. We were altar boys, choir boys, and Boy Scouts.We usually got stuck serving at the funerals, because the older kids took the weddings (which inevitably resulted in a tip from the best man). I didn't mind, though, because the local funeral director, Frank Dawson, always had a joke to tell or some sage advice to offer on the way to the cemetery.

My favorite time of year was Advent, when on Friday afternoons the different grades would pack the stairwells of our school and sing Christmas hymns. If the nuns and priests at St. Aloysius taught us anything-and they taught us a great many things-it was just how precious life is. Some of us, however, had to learn that lesson the hard way.

It was in February of 1956 when Smitty and I found ourselves bundled for the single-digit weather and sledding on the Seventh Street hill.After four or five trips down the speedy run we rested near the small stream known locally as "Stink Creek."There had been a thaw the previous week, resulting in a rather impressive flood along the flats adjoining the creek, and when the weather turned cold the entire expanse froze in crystalline majesty.

I trekked out onto the ice and stamped my foot."Solid as a rock," I pronounced. Just then there was a loud crack, and the ice parted. I was instantly engulfed in an unimaginable terror.As I fell through I managed a "Jesus,Mary, and Joseph."And then everything turned milky gray.

Weighed down as I was with a winter coat, scarf, hat with ear flaps, two pairs of pants, woolen mittens, and buckled calf length rubber boots, I should have dropped right to the bottom of the creek. But the current was so swift, instead of descending I darted downstream...under the ice!

As I rose I struck solid ice. I opened my eyes and looked into the murky water all around me.As I rose again I thrust upward, and my head struck ice again. This time, fortunately, I broke through. My depleted lungs sucked in great volumes of sweet air.

At just that critical moment a large tree limb slapped down in front of my face. It was Smitty.

When I hadn't surfaced, he followed along the bank of the creek, picking up a fallen tree limb as he went, and when I finally burst through the ice he was there with his life pole.After a great deal of exertion, he pulled me out of the water and across the ice to the shore.

Ten-year-old Bruce Edward Daniel Smith had saved my life with his quick thinking, stalwart determination, and courage.

"Thanks Smitty," was all I could say.

"Yeah," he said,"...it's ok."

Neither of us said much after that as we walked home.

I have always hoped that someday I might repay my old friend. But there are some debts that simply can't be repaid.

Robert Cheeks writes frequently on American life from Ohio.