From the Desk of The DBeazy One-Man-Think-Tank

Recently, someone posted on Facebook a meme questioning, “What are some things that we did in the ‘80s that kids today will never experience?” There were many great replies, such as references to old television shows, local restaurants, long since closed, rotary phones, and activities that no longer hold the allure they once did like skating. In an attempt to provide a different take on the question and of course trying to be cute, I responded that the youth of today would never experience sneaking out to Lake Columbia late at night to “watch the submarine races.”

I forgot about my response to the post almost immediately. However, a day or some days, maybe a week or two went by and one cool, clear, and quiet night, sitting outside next to a fire, something jogged my memory of my response to the post. I sat in the still and in the quiet, I guess there were some normal nighttime noises, frogs or crickets, maybe, the crackling of the fire, and an occasional vehicle on the highway in the distance, but for the most part, quiet. Quiet in that there were no TVs playing, no music from Bluetooth speakers, no dogs barking, the absence thereof, kind of took me back. Back to a time when the quietness of the night was much more the norm, when folks slept normal and routine hours, so much different from what has been the norm around my home for so many years that it is all a distant memory. I conjured a memory of times not so desensitized, back before video games, when there were only two or three TV channels, and certainly no apps and no cell phones. The world was huge and there were wondrous things out there that at the time, hadn’t even made it to the idea stage. As horrible as the world was back then, innocence existed in old and young alike.

Regarding my response, yes, it was something that I did as often as I could, and surprisingly, with little or no interference from authority figures, game wardens, and law enforcement personnel. The first time, just myself and one other, then later, most often with my date and another couple, which was fun and took a lot of the pressure off by preventing the silences during lapses between words. But that was the way in the ‘70s with teenagers, things we did, though exciting, pale in comparison to what the youth of today already know. There is no telling the trouble we would have gotten into if we’d been caught. The memories flowed and sadness is the emotion that overcame me. Sadness for lost days and missed chances. Sadness for the youth of today and sadness for whatever future may come their way.

So I sat there in the silence and in the quiet and like being there again, the glow of a face in the light of the car stereo and the low hanging moon over the lake appeared in my mind’s eye. In the moments when it all got a little too heavy for us, a suggestion that we go swimming then a dare, and in no time at all, I was naked and chest-deep in the warm lake water and daring her to join me. It became a thing. Something that we did and none of our friends could believe that this was something we would do. To my guy friends, the idea that I convinced a girl to go skinny dipping, well, I was their hero. To her friends, the questions were many, there was some jealousy, but the action was taken by most as one of the most romantic experiences imagined at the time. My friends and hers never knew that we barely touched, mainly just frolicked about, both proud to be granted a reprieve from the act that was happening much too quickly before across the front seat of the 1979 Thunderbird.

The act created an electrically charged scene. Every stimulus exponentially exaggerated. The nighttime air, the mud at the water’s edge, the breeze on wet skin, and the total quiet and darkness that enveloped us. What we were doing then was considered to be WRONG! VERY WRONG, especially in the eyes of “her” parents. Obviously, it is generally considered no more “wrong” today than then, but still, I don’t know, the world was just less “in your face” twenty-four hours per day as it is now. We were foolhardy to a point, both knowing we were in above our heads, doing things we were taught to wait for, yet neither, or both, held conviction to fully say no. So the low moon, the water, and the night provided us with an alternative. In the water, we were still doing wrong, but not “THE” wrong that our parents warned us about. Guilty yes, but probably should have been commended for our refrain. Her mother would not have seen it that way and her father just might have produced a 12 gauge shotgun.

Now to this point, I’ve revealed more about myself than I had planned, but the entire scene seemed so familiar to me. Not in the sense that I had played the leading role in the story, but in the fact that I had heard this story somewhere else.  My recollection of a memory from my youth was far too familiar and it occurred to me, I’d heard the same story told in the lyrics of a song.

R.E.M. released a song called “Nightswimming” in 1993, though I never heard of the song until 2018 when I heard Jennifer Nettles and Sugarland sing the first verse in a YouTube video. Subsequent research into the history and meaning of the song led to me to the R.E.M. version. Though I’ve heard it probably a hundred times or so in the last 3 years, it never brought back the memories of similar nights, years ago, I guess due to the “conditions” not being right. The “conditions” being, physical, like me outside on a quiet night, but also emotional. Nothing as specific as the quiet night, the moon, and the darkness, but maybe just a feeling, just a typical DBeazy stroll down memory lane. Or maybe, another sign of early-onset dementia, which is usually a joke to me, but lately, I’m not quite so sure. For whatever the motivation, I was led to the song, the lyrics, and the search for any available “backstory” to it.

It is said that R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills was playing a “kind of circular” riff on the piano when Michael Stipe asked him to play it a second time. It was then that Stipe sang the song to Mill’s piano and according to Peter Buck, R.E.M. member, the song sounded exactly the same nearly a year later when it was actually recorded.

Over the years, Stipe has effectually dodged personal questions regarding the song by giving the entire band credit for the writing, or by saying that he originally wrote the song about an “off the wall” night watchman, but that the guy was so paranoid that Stipe said that he had to change the title to “Nightswimming” instead of “Night Watchman.” In the book, “Reveal: The Story of R.E.M.”, by  Johnny Black, Stipe admitted that parts of the song are more or less autobiographical and that it is about a “kind of an innocence that’s either kind of desperately clung onto or obviously lost.”

Personally, I think that the song was more autobiographical than Stipe cared to admit even though he said in the book that the song was “mostly made up.” I can relate to this sentiment as I believe that in my case, similar youthful experiences were simultaneously lost to my memory and now, clung to for sure. I also feel that Stipe’s reluctance to divulge pertinent specifics regarding a memory from his past is due to the fact that just as I revealed more of myself in the sharing of the experience, it is common for writers to do. At the same time though, I am sure that Michael Stipe would admit that while it is sometimes necessary to reveal some personal data to paint a picture, it is almost certain that more, a lot more is left unshared.

So, in consideration of the song, Nightswimming, it is true that today, most people would not totally grasp the significance of such an act. For that matter, I can attest that I am relatively sure that I would not go skinny dipping in Lake Columbia tonight, or any other night. But that is just it, I certainly thought nothing of it back then and to me the saddest point of the song is that like innocence, “these things they go away, replaced by every day.”

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