NO SWIMMING ALLOWED by Peter Nolan Smith

The weather forecast predicted a sultry summer day for September 9, 2001. My friend Alia had transported a Porsche Boxer from the UK and her high-octane convertible awaited clearance at the Newark Customs. The British diplomat asked me to accompany her to the Jersey docks and I agreed on the stipulation that we drove the two-seater north along the Hudson.

“Where to?” The blonde mother of six had left the children with her ex-husband for the day. Alia was up for most anything.

“I know a place.” I extolled Lake Minnewaska Park. “I’ve been going up there since the 70s. Once I jumped off the cliff into the lake.”

“How high?”

“Sixty feet.” It felt like a hundred.

“We won’t be performing any death-defying feats today.”

“No, those days are over.”

I was nearing fifty. The gravity transformed the water to semi-hard mud and the soles of my feet were very tender.

“We’re going to Lake Awosting. Its slanted stone beach bears the scars of the Ice Age Glaciers before disappearing to the lake’s blue-emerald waters.”

“Fabulous, it will be my last swim before autumn.” The slim blonde diplomat loved hot weather and we taxied over to the Port of Newark. Her last posting had been in Dar Es Salaam and she conversed with the Tanzanian taxi driver in Swahili.

At the entrance to the docks the Customs officials treated the UN under-assistant with the utmost deference. Oxford was her alma mater. Her family dated back to before the invention of sliced bread. The process of retrieving her car took about seven minutes. She beamed a smile of thanks to the officials and we sat in her Porsche.

“I bought this from my mother’s inheritance. Sitting in it reminds me of her.” Alia pressed a button. The top folded into the rear. She gave the engine some gas.

“The car sounds fast.” I settled back into the leather seat and appreciated the growl of Teutonic power.

“Wait until we get on the road.” Alia shifted into first and released the clutch, shedding her mother of six status for the role of a woman on the run.

The Porsche had diplomatic plates, but she ran the car below 90 on the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. We listened to loud 1980s English Pop on the stereo. Conversation was impossible at this speed, although when we hit a deserted stretch of the Northway, Alia floored the accelerator and shouted, “No police anywhere set up uphill radar traps.”

Seconds later we hit 130 on an empty road.

The wind ripped through our hair.

Her hand twisted the volume knob for Depeche Mode’s PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE.

Our friendship dated back to London.

Leicester Square.

CUT TO 1986.

A young blonde woman arrived at the Cafe de Paris in a rubber dress. Her provocative attire earned immediate entrance and I was slow to realize that this sliver of femininity represented the shards of the English Empire. Her position never mattered to me, because Alia could quote Ovid in Latin and I adored knowledge.

CUT TO 2001

Exiting at New Paltz Alia switched to the radio. NPR reported how America’s delegation at the South Africa conference on racism had contested the vote on Israel’s mistreatment of the occupied territories.

“That’s not good.” Our new president was a born-again Christian. GW Bush’s devotion to the Second Coming was based on a Jewish Jerusalem.

“Israel has a right to protest any accusation as does the countries opposing it.” Alia was 100% on the side of compromise to achieve peace.

“Theft is beyz.” My thoughts on Palestine were similar to my feeling about the freeing the North Counties of Ireland, yet I didn’t mention Ulster, because we were on a road trip and the day was far too beautiful a day to ruin with an argument over oppression.

I directed Alia down the main road of New Paltz.

The Hudson Valley village was a pleasant college community. Newly arrived students crowded the sidewalks with smiles on their faces. None of them were going home until Thanksgiving.

A few miles out of town the sheer cliffs of the Shawangunk Ridge rose from the valley. Overhead rock climbers challenged the Gunks’ sheer ascent routes. Friends watched from below. We drove past the cliffs to the park. The lot was empty.

Throwing towels over our shoulders Alice and I set out for Lake Awosting. Few hikers were on the trail. Unusual for such a lovely day. The path had been built for vacationers at the Lake Mohonk Resort. A carriage road designed to offer panoramic vistas of the Hudson Valley. Alice and I enjoyed our walk and soon Lake Awosting came into sight.

Boreal blue water surrounded by evergreen pines.

Alia cruised slowly by the hundreds of car on the shoulder of Route 55. Overhead rock climbers challenged the sheer ascent routes. Friends watched from below.

“Is Lake Awosting far?”

“At the top of the cliffs.”

We turned off the road into Lake Minnewaska Park. No one was at the ticket booth. The parking lot was empty. It was after Labor Day and school was back in session.

We threw towels over our shoulders and set out for Lake Awosting.

Few hikers were on the carriage road, which had been built for rich vacationers at the nearby Lake Mohonk Resort.

Alia and I enjoyed the panoramic vistas of the Hudson Valley and after 30 minutes Lake Awosting came into sight.

The deep blue water was surrounded by evergreen pines.

No one was on the granite beach slanting into the lake.

A female park ranger on an ATV rolled up the trail.

The hefty officer in her 30s braked within a foot of us.

She eyed our bathing suits and towels.

“Where you heading?”

“Lake Awosting.”

“You’re not thinking about swimming there, are you?” Her voice adopted a threatening tone of authority.

“Why not?” This was America, the Land of the Free.

“Because it’s against the law to swim after Labor Day.”¯

“My friend has been saying that Lake Awosting is the best swim in the Catskills. We thought that we might test his theory.” Alice’s accent was pure upper-class. They usually got their way.

“There are no lifeguards.” The ranger gunned her engine, as if she had been instructed to enforce this mandate by GW Bush himself.

“I can swim three miles. What’s the problem?”

“Dead men never sue, but the local lawyers wait for some drunk fool to jump into the lake and break their neck, so the families can sue the state parks for several million dollars.”

“It’s a stupid law.”

Alia touched my arm.

She possessed a diplomat’s gift of knowing when to say nothing.

“Thank you, officer.”

The park ranger drove down the road.

“You still want to go swimming no matter what she said?”

I shrugged a ‘yes’.

“The law is the law and as a guest of your country I am obliged to obey them.”

“Drat.”

We turned away from the forbidden pleasure of Lake Awosting’s crystal-clear water.

“I hate this America. It’s become the Land of No.”

“It’s the times. Not the country.”

“More like both. Let’s go back to New York.” The City was the last bastion of the Free.

On the trip home the radio announced that the USA bailing out of the Racism Conference in South Africa in protest of a nearly unanimous condemnation of Israel for their occupation of Palestine.

“Another thing I hate about America.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Anti-Zionist talk was as legal in this America as swimming after Labor Day.

I needed a drink.

Alia and I stopped at a bar in New Paltz.

Three beers later I was ready to resume our return to New York.

Alia was sober. She never drank liquor and the Porsche hit 140 on the Freeway.

I sat back and enjoyed the ride, because speed was a rare freedom in America and Alia could drive fast. All I had to do was watch the wind.

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