Published: 27 Feb 2020
By the time they had broken the surface of the water the whole swim center was hollering, there was unrestrained clapping, the tears were streaming from my eyes as the sheer beauty of their dive sunk in, and Josh was beside himself, hollering that he had captured it all on his camera. The swim center owners, Tony and Jerry, longtime friends and mentors to Josh and I, made their way to us and Josh replayed his disc for them to see everything all over again, but this time they were able to see the perfectly ramrod straight position David and Marcus had entered the water in.
The teens themselves were mesmerized when Josh showed them the same thing just moments later after we adults made our way over to them as they hoisted themselves out of the water. Theresa was the first to hug them both, then my dads’, then I hugged Marcus and then David, Josh following right behind me. Handshakes and congratulations were received by the duo from dozens of bystanders, many asking them if they were going to try out for the diving squad of the high school swim team for their junior year at the school. I heard them tell those people that they were not sure about that and left it like that for now.
We took the boys off to the side and had them do some “cool down” exercises so that when we went outside in the much colder air they wouldn’t cramp up, and then we all hit the showers and then once dressed we found my dads’ waiting to drive us all back home. Ian and Wayne couldn’t stop raving about their tandem dive and encouraged them to keep practicing, not every dive would earn them 10s, and having their first dive be so flawless they didn’t want them to expect that kind of output every single time. The teens seemed to appreciate my dad’s candor, but then Marcus’s granddads went on and on about how perfect the teens had dived. I just hoped their moment of a reality check might stay with them in the long run.
Yes, the other set of granddads, the three uncles, and the twins all had to be shown the video shot of the teens’ tandem dive and of course, then Josh took them down the road to show Cindy and Ingrid when he dropped off David after dinner. Everyone had seen what they were capable of doing and they ate up the praise, but after that first day they tried to change the subject whenever their diving came up in conversations. But they did continue to practice, especially at home on the two lower boards, reserving their practices on the 10-meter platform for the one or two times a week they were at the swim center.
We had an event coming up for New Year’s Day, Ingrid and Cindy had decided to marry that day and each one had asked one of the teens to be their “best man”, Dave standing up with his mother and Ingrid had graciously asked Marcus to be hers. Josh and I were recruited to escort them down the aisle at their ceremony at our MCC church, they had told us that it was our fault that they were getting married and we should have an integral part in their ceremony. Dave moved in with us as they took a two-week honeymoon/vacation, Ingrid’s first such break from her practice in over five years.
We let David pick a room and he used it for his clothing, but we knew that each night he slept in Marcus’ downstairs bedroom. We also knew that there were no anal activities going on, at least no anal intercourse. The two teens had confided in Josh and me that they were saving that pleasure for after they graduated and wed. They were happy with the activities they were engaged in now, much like Josh and I at their ages. By Valentine’s Day they were trying out for the Spring interscholastic track team and also won places on the cross-country team. This year they jogged or ran twice a week from the school after practice with the team to the swim center to work out in the pool and get some diving practice in on the 10-meter platform. Usually one of us would drive over before dinner to collect them, if it was really inconvenient for some reason or another, one of the granddads or uncles would do the honors.
They had continued their cross-country training, weather permitting, all winter, and took advantage of the weight room at school and our small set up at home. They were both fine specimens of virile young manhood and they reported that they sometimes either singly, or in some cases both, got hit on by not only students at their school (male and female alike), but by folks at the swim center or about town. Marcus told us that when they were approached like that, they usually held up their left hands and showed off their matching engagement rings. That, they said, usually put a stop to the questioner, if not, an outright vehement refusal did the trick.
They both did very well during their cross country runs and they also had a loyal group of fans at their diving workouts at the swim center. When Tony and Jerry, the owners, told Josh and I that the crowds they were attracting those two days a week were really hampering their training, they suggested that we get them permission to use the swimming pool at the high school. They thought that with our connections there, and that we were teachers at the middle school right next door, that it would certainly be safer for the teens, especially if we were to volunteer to be their lifeguards
We hadn’t realized the crowd the boys were attracting but as Tony and Jerry said, it wouldn’t be long before something happened, and they just didn’t have enough staff to keep everyone safe. So Josh and I decided that one of us would contact the principal of the high school first, to get the true ruling about after school use of the natatorium, the swimming facility at the high school attached to the gym there, a facility that Josh and I were very familiar with from our own diving days. He told me when I called that he had been expecting this call one day, and just who did we find to train for the next Olympics. I laughed and told him it was more like we wanted to have a safer place for our son and his partner to train, that they had attracted quite a crowd at the Swim Center in town and the owners there had suggested we try to make use of the high school facilities. I told him that Josh and I were prepared to also lifeguard the boys as they practiced on the diving platforms after their track workouts, probably not more than two days a week.
The principal at the high school asked me if he could call me back in about an hour and I told him I would be teaching a class, but that Josh had a free period then, so I gave him Josh’s cell number and I thanked him for his consideration. Just over an hour later Josh knocked on my classroom door and I went to the door to see what he had learned. He looked a bit sheepish as he looked at me and when I asked if we had permission to use the natatorium he stammered out that we did, but there was a condition imposed on our use of the pool, we had to also chaperon and mentor five of the high school divers, and five of the middle school divers also.
It had been suggested that we treat these sessions as a kind of diving class, or diving camp for the students. Their current competition season was over, but these were what their coaches considered the best of both schools that would undoubtedly be able to use the skills we taught them during next Fall’s diving season. I was a bit ticked at this, but the more we got to talk about it after school, Josh convinced me the schools were not really taking advantage of us, it was us who were looking for something and not offering anything in return. Yes, it had been a few years since we had coached or mentored at any level, other than our own family, and darn it, if this was how we got to use the facility, then the twins were getting in on the act too.
These sessions started the next week. All ten of the schools’ team divers were known to us, either as current, or former students, or as divers we had seen at diving competitions we had attended locally or guys we had met at the Swim Center. We began by having all twelve do basic dives, Marcus and Dave included in the twelve, but then we had Calum and Scott do the same dives. We made our notes on each dive done and then lined them up in order of their dive and made our critiques privately to each one and after this was done for all 14 it was on to the next dive. This took most of the first two hour time allotted to us. In subsequent sessions we split the group up between the two of us and Josh’s group went through their dives, followed by my group.
We started this off by first showing them the proper execution of the dive we expected from them, by doing the dive ourselves before they all tried it individually themselves. Yes, there was time to comment on each dive done, and of course praise was given where praise was due. Because the natatorium had two separate diving pools this made the rounds of dives go a lot faster, one group at each of the two diving stations. I have to say right here that each of the school divers wanted to be there, no one was forcing them to do this, which helped a lot. They were receptive to our suggestions and there was a marked improvement in their dives within two week’s time. The last half hour of our last session every week we two mentors had our top three divers each run through their dives for the rest of the boys to see and comment on.
That first two months these divers changed all the time, with two exceptions, Marcus and David were almost always in the top three, no matter which one of us coached that group they were in that session. Josh and I swapped off in no particular order, and we often mixed the groups up as well, mixing the two age groups, splitting up the doubles (tandem) divers like Marcus and David with one each on one of the two groups. We even split the twins up sometimes, letting them get a good dose of well-rounded coaching just like the others.
It was fun to watch our boys at home in our own pool. The granddads and uncles got a show off our four divers who were not just horsing around on the two boards we had. It did give them a bit more time to practice, and they got more time to train and refine their tandem dives, but Josh and I had made the decision as our third month began, to ask our group to our pool, with their parents’ consent, once or twice a week. We pretty much kept to our same routine there, but it was a much more relaxed atmosphere and we were able to sometimes get in some one to one coaching, but of course the big pool with the two diving set-ups at the school gave us a lot more time for that one to one coaching.
With only a month and a half to go before all the town schools let out for the Summer vacations Josh and I realized we were going to actually miss these mentoring/coaching sessions. Both diving coaches, the one from our middle school and the one from the high school had been frequent visitors to the school held sessions, but due to the rules of competition they couldn’t participate in the training aspect, but they were both so appreciative of what we had been able to accomplish and they also were just about peeing their pants when they saw the four sets of tandem divers we had been working with. One pair from each of their teams, Calum and Scott from the grade school, and of course David and Marcus, who had not committed themselves to joining the high school swim/dive team as yet. It would only be for the next competition season in the Fall though if they did join the team, the smart buggers had followed our footsteps and were tested out of their junior year, the two would be seniors when school started in the Fall again.
By the end of the school year our kids were getting excited about not only having the Summer off from school, but we were going on a trip. This was a trip Mr. Morgan had arranged. We were all flying up to Maine to spend a week with the Morgans at a cottage they owned in Ogunquit. It sounded ideal, the five-bedroom cottage was on a dead-end lane just a block or two from the road that leads from the mainland to the near shore island which was where Ogunquit beach was. Josh and I looked it up before accepting the Morgan’s generous offer of a neutral place where they could see Marcus again without bringing up all the gloom of his first pair of fathers’ deaths. They had communicated with Marcus, as we had communicated with them by phone and by email. They were anxious to see him up on his own two feet and active again.
We were of course taking Dave with us, his mothers were going to spend some time alone at their home, stopping by occasionally to trail ride with the grandfathers who had rapidly become two more sets of male couples they felt close to. We flew up on a Saturday and were returning on the following Saturday morning. They picked us up at the local airport and we had a joyous reunion before stopping at a seafood restaurant in Wells out near the shore where we got to pick the lobster for them to cook for us out of a huge aquarium and we ate at picnic tables out on the patio. The Morgans couldn’t get over how much our boys had grown, and they treated David like they did our boys and it looked like we were all going to enjoy our week sharing their big cottage by the Atlantic.
We all walked across the causeway to the beach the next morning and the Morgans were thrilled that the boys were all good swimmers, and Josh spoke up and said they ought to see them all dive, saying this like the proud father and trainer he was. That was all it took, and our former Olympic coach wanted to know all about the boys and their diving. Within an hour and a half, he had called someone at one of the huge holiday hotel and resort hotel complexes nearby and arranged for us to all spend the next afternoon there. It had three regulation diving platforms at one of their pools.
We had a great time at the beach, and we ate lunch purchased from one of the many shops on the boardwalk back to the mainland. The Morgans were having a rest in the afternoon so Josh and I took the boys for a walk down Main Street. There were all kinds of shops and Inns and an old hotel along the way and we had a lot of fun window shopping and actually stopping in at some of the places we saw. Two- or three-times Josh and I were asked for our autographs when we were recognized, and those times were not in the least annoying, the askers were polite and courteous and didn’t make a pest of themselves. Our boys all thought it was funny.
The next afternoon was spent at this huge resort with three pools, a mini golf course, a restricted horseback riding set up, tennis and badminton courts. We also saw shuffle board set ups, and croquet courses set up on a side lawn. The Morgans told us there were live bands of one sort or another on most nights and that poker tournaments were often held there. The Morgans led us to the third and smaller of the pools where the diving platforms dominated the far end. There were not that many using the pool, and no one utilizing the platforms, so we set up on lounge chairs near the diving end and after the boys warmed up they delighted in showing off for Coach, as we all called him.
Even Mrs. Morgan was impressed with all four boys, but she delighted in all four of their tandem dives. Coach just stood there, a big cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth. We knew then that he was impressed, otherwise he would have been puffing on the thing and it wouldn’t be hanging down. He was not only impressed, but he finally turned to Josh and me and said that the twins were remarkable for their ages, but that Marcus and David were undoubtedly better than we had been at that age, and that was just a bit older than we had been when we won 8 medals at the 2020 Olympics. By then he was practically salivating. We had drawn a crowd by the time the boys had demanded Josh and I dive also. So, we did some of our better routines from the 10-meter platform to the great enjoyment of the gathered crowd, about seventy people from the other pools and some twenty to twenty-five were in tennis togs.
Mr. and Mrs. Morgan kind of moved the crowd away, explaining that we were on vacation and required a bit of privacy with our family but we all felt a little self-conscious after that and we soon packed up and decided to spend the rest of our afternoon on the beach, where once on our towels and beach blankets and under a couple of beach umbrellas for some shade we went totally unrecognized, at least no one came up to us or tried to get our autographs, even if they did recognize us.
We again went to the seafood restaurant in Wells, Coach said we just had to remember to take a right at the firehouse and that road led right to the restaurant. We all ordered lobster rolls, but we picked at a few appetizers as well, everyone sharing. The remainder of our stay was spent mostly at the beach, but we did go into Perkins Cove to look through some galleries and we also drove to some of the outlet shops nearby. It was really a great getaway for all of us and when we had to leave on Saturday morning the boys all said they felt like they were leaving another set of grandparents behind.
We got home in plenty of time to get started on the preparations for the haunted hayrides. We helped with the preparations necessary for the big wagons, the paths the wagons would take had to be remarked every year and ruts filled in and then tamped down to make a smooth riding surface for our paying guests. Costumes had to be maintained or remade, or new ones created for new scenarios. The regular riding trails were maintained as they were available for a work crew to go into them, and maintenance on the restrooms was done vigorously during the summer. We had some extra volunteers this summer, as our crew of school team divers would show up early in the afternoons of our training days and help out about the place, splitting up to help our full time crews or just doing some of the usual chores to free up others to do work they were not equipped, or allowed to do, for safety reasons.
We were surprised in August to hear from the high school diving coach that should Marcus and David want, they would be welcomed onto the team, and just like Josh and I, their spots were assured, they just had to show up to the trials near the end of the month, and participate with the rest of the team at practices and meets. Josh and I invited Ingrid and Cindy to the house again for dinner and we four had a little meeting with the teens and after explaining this to them they thought that they would like to do it, for two reasons. One; it would make them two sport participants, and two; they wanted to support the guys from the high school diving team they had been training with for almost five months now. Either way, both teens would have this experience to add to their college applications, along with their experience on the track team, and their outstanding scholastic records.
In addition to talking about them joining the diving squad at the high school, we talked to them about college and their thoughts on what they would like to do after. They both had distinct thoughts about what they wanted to do after college and that was to go on to medical school. They wanted to specialize in pediatrics. I couldn’t be prouder of them, and I could see the other three adults at the table beaming also. Josh reached under the table and held my hand, giving it a little squeeze as he did. He then told the two that when they graduated from high school and then college there would be enough money available for the two of them to get into medical school and to support them through to getting their degrees in medicine. We had never used up all the funds put aside for me after my birth father’s death, and, after our Olympic experience,we had hundreds of thousands and those funds were sitting and growing monthly and there would be plenty left to support the twins in whatever schooling they wanted after high school.
The ladies sputtered at this, but I told them that they had our sons’ wedding to pay for as soon as the teens turned 18, not that we wouldn’t be helping with that too, but we had the funds to do this for both Marcus and David so that is how we wanted to spend it. They laughed out loud at us, jokingly accusing us of being chauvinistic pigs, assuming they were the parents of the “bride”, but they were hugging us as they said this. We talked a bit more, but with everything decided about the young men’s career course, and what it would take to get them started on that path, we agreed to get together again like this when it came time for letters of recommendation to be written to go along with their college applications. Ingrid would write one for each of the boys and we parents would write ones for each other’s sons.
I can’t tell you how proud of the two boys we were when they started their college applications, both applying to colleges that offered pre-med curriculum and offered a medical school complete with residency programs culminating in an MD degree. Curiously they both told us that UMASS, Amherst, was their first choice, that would allow them to remain living at home. By the end of the month of August they were on the diving squad of their high school aquatics team, along with four of the five from the high school they had been training with (one lad had to move away with his family just before school started).
We knew from the middle school grapevine that our five middle school divers had also won places on their diving squad, so it looked like a lot of our Fall was going to be spent at swim and dive meets. I had a very odd feeling about all our divers, but more so about our two best, Marcus and Dave. Josh pondered my suppositions when I explained them to him, and he held me and told me that we both loved teaching our classes, but if some of our divers did as well as I was thinking, and he agreed with me about all of them, then we could also mentor them as much as we were able, no matter how far they wanted to explore what came of their successes.
The boys all trained with their teams, but they all still spent time at our pool a couple of times a week after school. We made sure their coaches were alright with this, and both encouraged this activity. Both actively petitioned to have us (Josh and me) named as team mentors so we could be close by as the divers competed. Our first meet was between two middle schools, one from our town and another from a neighboring town. It was held at our middle school and I have to say the results were more than we had ever expected. Our five divers, and a team mate they had asked to join us at our pool, took all the top places for every dive in every category, tandem included. It was just mind blowing and their official coach was beside himself, but then his swimmers had outdone themselves too. The middle school team took top honors for that meet, and for every consecutive meet after in their league.
I just wish I could say the same thing about the high school teams, but I can’t, I promised Josh he could, “Holy Fucking Shit!!! They did it too!!!”. Those were his exact words when the tote boards announced the various team standings at the end of the high school’s first meet. Josh had to change up his tune over the next several meets, and he would say,” Holy Fucking Shit, they did it again!!!” each time and for each school. Both schools took the highest scores in the regionals and then in the state championships. It was a fantastic season for the aquatic’s teams in our small town. There was talk of a celebratory parade, but the New England States Championships were soon upon us and then we had one more achievement to add to their lists.
The small town parade was just that, but like times four or five times bigger, as other towns in our area wanted to show our teams their support and just before the parade was to start we got a visitor or two, Coach Morgan and one of our favorite people in the world, Greg Louganis. In our proud excitement we had sent each a video link to continuous coverage of the diving events, but we never thought they would show up on our doorstep, at least so soon, within a week of the championship meet. They came with our family to watch the parade and we dropped David and Marcus off at the gathering point for the participants of the parade, so the boys could meet up with the rest of their team. Our big family group which included Cindy and Ingrid, now numbered two more, Ingrid just as surprised and pleased as we were to see her old friend Gregg again.
We picked a spot roomy enough for us all right in the parking lot of Dufresne’s Ice Cream stand just down the main road from the road with the schools on it. We all visited until the parading crowd reached where we were. Coach and Gregg had gotten all caught up on their drive here from the airport, but the rest of us had some catching up to do, even the twins, who were so pleased to see Coach again. The granddads made no such small talk, they wanted to know if they were here to offer Olympic tryouts to members of the diving squads.
Even before the school floats reached us, we had found out that the entire diving squad from the high school and middle school would be invited to try out for the 2024 Olympics team. The Olympics will be held in Paris and run from the middle of May until roughly the middle of June. The actual tryouts would be held in just a week, the middle of December. We were told, that of the 11 total being invited, only three would probably get a spot on the team, but they felt the boys all deserved the honor of even getting a chance to try out.
Because of the sheer number of the boys they were going to make an exception in their case, there were arrangements being made now for a group of qualifying judges to fly up to the UMASS Natatorium and tryouts would begin in two day’s time, on Monday morning, starting with the middle school boys, and then in the afternoon there would be tryouts for the high school boys. The boys were all in peak condition, their championships having been held only the week before. The fun part was going to be telling both groups about this one last competition this year, among themselves, both age groups.
There was a great deal of excitement generated when Greg made this announcement at a brief photo session back at the parade starting point where several speakers had been invited to speak, Josh and I included, but we invited Greg up to make his announcement instead of us making a speech. We felt that Greg’s announcement would mean a lot more to our community than our little talk would have.
To say that we were as nervous as the boys trying out would be very accurate, but as it turned out when it came time for the two most closely connected to us, David and Marcus, we had control of ourselves and we had already been assured that two of the middle school divers were being tagged as alternate divers and one of the other high school students was virtually assured a berth on the men’s diving team. Now the last two competitors. Marcus and Dave did their individual dives and then totally blew away the judges with their tandem dives. They had earned the highest scores on their dives and their tandem dives earned the highest scores of the day. Five of the eleven invited to tryout had earned some sort of participation in the next Olympics. Anyone trying out at the national tryouts would have to better our boy’s scores to get on the team. As it was, no one did. The bar had been set high and our divers had met or bested the judge’s expectations. We were going to Paris in about six months.
Of course, there was some grumbling from some members of the press and I’m sure from some others across the country, but when the Olympic Committee explained the reasons why a separate tryout session had been set up for our group it pretty much shut up the few naysayers. The regional tryouts for our area conflicted with the dates for our championship meet which earned us the New England Championship title. There were eleven candidates, eleven, much more from just one region in the whole country, let alone all from one small town. The expenses incurred by the judges to come to our area were paid for from donated funds, it didn’t cost either the boys trying out, nor the judges, anything to do this, plus the eleven students didn’t have to travel, didn’t have to pay for overnight accommodations or meals while away from home, plus it was one group that wouldn’t be placing an undue burden on the facilities chosen for the tryouts.
With donations from locals and local businesses the five boys were able to join the others eventually chosen to make up the USA diving squad at the beginning of May. They were accompanied by Josh and me as their official mentors. One week later, just as the squad was getting to know each other a bit and the team was beginning to gel, the granddads brought the twins to town to join us. They had finished their school year, the five team members from our town had finished their final exams before we came down here, foregoing the last week of their school year.
Josh and I were asked many times to do sit down interviews, and we did do several, focusing on our family, our small town, and of course, the five young men from our town that had been chosen to participate in the actual Olympic competitions. The two students from the middle school chosen as alternates had to go through the training all the others on the diving squad had to do, just in case they were called upon to fill in for a sick or injured diver. They were good, but two others had bested their tryout scores. Since they were the youngest on the squad, they naturally became the new” younger brothers” of the whole team. Marcus and David were not the only “out” members of the squad. There were two others from different parts of the country who came out during the time before the flight to the actual games in the middle of the month.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: At the time of this writing there were no posted details of what the French had set up as far as venues for the 2024 Summer Games, and given the current events in that great City of Lights, Paris, I don’t blame them. With politically charged protests and constant terrorist threats on the city, and actual attacks by terrorists, I wouldn’t post any actual details either. Also, for those that know me well you know that half of my family background is Canuck, with my fraternal grandparents coming from Canada. Some French was occasionally spoken in our home, but not much. So I will either fictionalize locations or skip describing a real place. I know it would add a certain amount of “je ne sais quoi” to the story, but I haven’t the ability of Snowbound to be able to carry it off, and the only time I was in Paris was while I was being transferred to The American Hospital in Switzerland while battling food poisoning in my late teens. All I got to see of Paris was what I could see from an ambulance window. Art
Back to the games: Once settled in at the Olympic village housing for the aquatics teams we were taken on a tour of the accommodations and its surrounding area. We saw several other groups doing this, an official tour guide and armed guards with us the entire time. Threats from terrorist groups made guards a necessity and should a group of us associated with the Olympics be approached by even the most harmless looking of pedestrians the guards were right there to make sure that person, even a child, was not a threat to us. Organized trips to some of the most famous of landmarks were arranged for the athletes and their accompanying coaches, family members, and chaperons.
Josh and I worked around the training schedules and managed to get our troupe on several side trips, the twins garnering as much attention as the student athletes did. The twins were with us in our room at the Village until their grandfathers arrived at the end of the week for the actual competitions. They then went to stay at a very close by hotel where we saw them at meal times almost every day we were all there. During one of our practice sessions we saw the official diving coach talking to the twins and he then came over to us and asked if we had trained the twins to dive as well. When we assured him we had, he asked if they would show him some dives, they did.
Calum and Scott were chuffed to do some dives for the coach and he then blew his whistle and emptied the pool so the two almost nine-year-olds could show off for the whole diving squad. They had their swimsuits on under their clothing so they just stripped off and took a dunk in the pool to warm up and then showed their diving skills off, everyone watching was totally blown away at the skills these boys had. When they moved to go off the 10-meter platform to do some of the fancy tandem dives they had perfected the whole squad went crazy. The twins just looked so small up there, but their execution of their tandem dives was spot on. They were perfectly in sync for each of their four dives from the highest platform. Marcus and David acted as their spotters in the water and Josh and I were at the end under the platforms to watch them descend through the air into the water, ready to jump in if we saw the need to.
The coach and the diving squad were cheering like crazy after their final dive, a reproduction of our entwined cannonball dive from the 2020 Olympics, one of our “Golden” dives. The twins were both congratulated by all that had watched them and one of the team actually said that it was a very humbling experience to watch them, he thought they were as good or better than he was.
The competitions started the next day for the men’s diving squad and it soon became apparent that Marcus and David had little or no competition in these tests of skill. They actually took gold in the first round of dives from the 10-meter platform, gold at the five-meter, and gold at the 3-meter platforms. Their only problems were during the tandem dives the next day. On a dive from the 5-meter platform Marcus pulled a hamstring muscle during a pairs dive which caused one of his legs to go out of sync with what David was doing and it cost them a point in their score, but they took the silver anyway for that event and 30 minutes later they took gold for their tandem cannonball dive from the 10-meter platform, showing their strength and agility by perfecting our four spins during their descent, ending in a near perfect rigidly erect entry into the water.
At the roped off area for family they were congratulated and cheered by the four granddads, Ingrid and Cindy, and of course the uncles, Billy, Brian and Justin, and the smaller set of twins, Calum and Scott. Their diving squad was celebrating heartily as not only did they have David and Marcus’ golds to cheer, but several silvers, two of those earned by the third student diver, Marcus and Dave’s high school teammate, for two of his individual dives. The medal ceremony held that night was absolutely thrilling and very emotional for all of us from back home, including the parents and relatives of all the medal winners.
All that night I thanked Pedro and Chuck again for naming us to care for their son, now our son.
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