Antique tonsil guillotines - photos

[Frank S]

We have strayed from the tonsil torture cutting device but. I learned to swim quite easily. I was about 4 or so my dad and I were fishing from the small wooden boat he had made. He had I were going across lake Travis just north west of Austin I was sitting near the bow of the flat bottom boat when we hit choppy water and I was thrown overboard, this was long before anyone thought that you needed life preservers to ride in a boat. Probably the only we we had on board that would float were the
wooden ores. He tossed one of them at me and said hold on to this while I bring the boat around and pick you up. THe ore landed in the water about 10 miles from me actually about 10 feet but at the time it seemed like miles. to a kid who had never swam before. Like you I splashed around until I figured out I could grab a hand full of water and pull myself through it. It was quite a while before he could maneuver the little boat against the wind with the small outboard and rescue me.
The ore was not enough to keep me completely afloat but I kind of got it under me and kept dog paddling. After that he couldn't keep me out of the water around our boat house