River Respect

From where I sit along a sandy stretch of river beach, I watch a young man ply the Delaware River with his fly-fishing rod. Hip-deep in the sunlit waters, he navigates along the rocky bottom roughly twenty feet from shore.

Between us, the glistening water stretches like a peaceful dream. From the shoreline, the river beguiles with its patterns of soothing fluidity. It appears passive and predictable. This illusory sense of calmness and gentleness is like an invitation. Extended in the clinging heat of summer, its allure is difficult to resist.

Perhaps this mesmerizing charm acted like a lure upon Orlando Rubio-Leon, a young man who became so exhausted trying to swim across the river on Monday that he might not have made it out alive without help from some Kittatinny campground staff and a National Park Service Ranger. Earlier this year two young men actually did drown trying to do the same thing. Sadly, their stories are not unique; we who live in the river region learn of such tragedies every year when the warm seasons summon us to enter waters of often unexpected depth and force.

For all their undeniable beauty, rivers are challenging waterways where boulders and gravel beds and rock ledges occur at random, where shallows become impenetrable depths in a matter of moments, where placid-appearing surfaces mask powerful currents that can sweep the strongest swimmer into dire circumstances without warning.

Rivers require our respect. It is essential that we assume such waters to be wider and deeper and far more powerful than they might appear. If we approach rivers in this way, we can spend many satisfying hours in their soothing embrace. Days later, swept along the currents of our lives, we will be rewarded with the sweet memories of our river adventures.