Our instructor had us do several of the things he’d taught us in the pool. He knocked our masks off, and we had to show him we could put them back on and use the air from our regulator to force the water out. We had to share a regulator for a few minutes; this was in case a tank ever failed. You could share with your dive buddy using the octo. He then set us free to go explore.
For me, the coolest moment was when we slipped into the deeper part of the pond. With visibility only being six feet, we soon lost sight of the surface. It seemed like we were traveling blind in a green glowing fog bank that got darker as we moved lower. When we reached the bottom, we were in another world. I felt like I was back in New York City where everything’s covered in grime, except we were all alone. The only sound was from our regulators and the bubbles they gave off.
Brook reached down and brushed the bottom, causing a big cloud of silt to form around her. She glided out of it, and we began to work our way up the side of the borrow pit. When we reached about ten feet, we began to see fish. They weren’t moving much because of the cold water. We saw some nice catfish and bass amongst the Christmas trees; it seemed the fish appreciated the cover. While I had a great time, I imagined that diving in warmer water with better visibility would be a lot more fun.
Getting out was an adventure. I quickly peeled off the wetsuit and jumped into the Jeep to get warm. Brook wasn’t far behind me. I had brought blankets we could wrap ourselves in while I had the heat on high.
“Glad you did it?” Brook asked.
“Yeah, this was fun. I really like your idea for spring break. Let’s get that set up,” I said.
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Chapter 11 – Nimby Thursday February 18
I skipped the dojo again tonight. The Zoning Board met the third Thursday of each month. Mr. Orange from the Homeless Coalition had been on me to attend, so I finally agreed. I found my parents had company when I got home: my grandmother and Uncle John were there, along with Caryn and Kendal.
“What brings everyone here?” I asked.
“You don’t think we’d miss your first foray into politics, do you?” Grandma Dawson asked.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” I said.
“You might be surprised,” Uncle John said.
“I got a letter today from Mr. Morris that you need to read,” Dad said. “It lays out our issues with the NCAA as he sees them. Why don’t you read it, and then we’ll talk.”
Dad handed me what looked to be 25 pages. My mom wanted to read it too, so as I completed a page, I would give it to her. I didn’t notice, but it was passed around to everyone there.
The first document was a letter labeled ‘privileged client/attorney communication.’ Attached were all the affidavits; I chose not to read those. After reading the letter, I could see why I hired Mr. Morris. The letter detailed all the potential problems with my eligibility. There were a few things that I’d done that might get me into trouble, but he seemed to feel he could work it out. I waited for Uncle John to read the last page.
“Did you talk to Mr. Morris?” I asked my dad.
“He seems to be getting ready for the NCAA. He said that he suspects that they won’t grant you eligibility without some clarifications. Mr. Morris did say that if you’d been in college when any of this happened, you would’ve been toast. He said none of this will make them happy, but the way the rules are written, you should be fine.
“What we need to work on is for when you’re in college. Mr. Morris thinks you can still do movies and model because you’ve been doing it now. The problem is that the bylaws state you can’t promote a film. There’s a precedent in your favor where a basketball player from the University of Kansas, Justin Wesley, played a young Wilt Chamberlain. Justin was granted permission to both make the movie and promote it in a limited sense. The difference is he had no acting experience at all.
“Mr. Morris doesn’t know exactly what types of waivers were given for Justin. You would think that the fact that it’s happened before should be enough to get you the same kind of waivers. But the NCAA has been exploring the possibility of obtaining a congressional antitrust exemption, much like the one enjoyed by Major League Baseball. They’re doing this in response to recent lawsuits concerning compensation of athletes. Mr. Morris says they currently enjoy some antitrust exemptions, but this would be more far-reaching and would most likely affect your ability to promote movies.
“In some good news, the NCAA gave a waiver to Little League phenomenon Mo’ne Davis. She received a deal from Chevrolet to do a commercial showing her pitching. An optimist might argue that the NCAA is changing. Slowly. Fitfully. But evolving nonetheless. Mr. Morris feels that because of your unique case, you’ll be fine in the long run. However, we need to focus on getting you eligible first and worry about the other things after that,” Dad concluded.
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