A Special Father's Day Story

It was the early 90s. I was 21 years old, on a camping trip with seven friends—four guys, four girls, all of us coupled up. And we were going down to the Ozarks where I had been born, to a section of the Current River called The Johnson Shut-Ins. It’s a place where there are all of these cliffs and granite outcroppings that kind of turn the river’s path into a bit of a maze, and there are campgrounds, hiking trails, and barbecue pits tucked into the twists and turns. It's deep, dark green forest and very beautiful.

The first day into the trip, all the guys decide that we want to go up to these cliffs overlooking the river and jump off into the water. And the best place to do this is right next to a sign that says, “No jumping and no diving. Sharp rocks concealed below water line.” We announced this plan to the girls, and the girls all look at us and sort of as a unit are like, “We think that some of us should go and relax and enjoy the natural beauty of the woods and the river and the beautiful blue skies and sunlight and, essentially, remain alive and uninjured in case you idiots need someone to call an ambulance.”

And we're like, “Ooh! Smart thinking!”

And so we split up. But first, we arrange a place to meet on the path later on. A spot on the trail halfway between the riverbank that people lay out on and the cliff upstream where no one is supposed to dive. And then, off we go our separate ways.

The appointed time comes and we all head down the trail. And we, the guys, are scratched and injured and bruised, and very proud of ourselves for being so. Matt did almost kill himself on one of those jagged rocks under the water. He has a long scrape down one flank to prove it, and that he cannot wait to show his girlfriend. But we don't need an ambulance. We expect the girls to make a good show of being relieved, because we’re male and twenty and do not yet realize that others are not as impressed with our antics as we are. But it wouldn’t matter anyway, because there’s another issue to contend with. When we arrive, the girls have a bunch of middle-aged people in tow. And when I say middle-aged, I mean they're the age that I am now. So, you know, close to death.

As we approach them on the trail, but before we're actually close enough to hear what they’re saying, I see my girlfriend, Christie, sort of gesture toward me. And then one of these middle-aged men—a guy with wire-framed glasses and sort of a very conservative, but heavily styled haircut. He looks sort of like a middle manager at a car dealership, but with just a touch of television preacher—his face lights up.Suddenly, he's standing in front of me, shaking my hand and saying, “Boy, I just had to meet Billy Joe Lawrence's boy!”

First of all, encountering anyone in the middle of the Ozark wilderness with the accent that I had fought so hard to get rid of is always an unnerving thing for me.

But hearing my father’s name in that accent, from this total stranger, is even more jarring. My father died when I was three months old. And, granted, the Ozarks are not the most heavily populated territory. But it is a big place, and I have no idea how this could possibly have come up. But clearly Christie had told him who I was, and he insisted on meeting me. And it turns out this guy had gone to high school with my father. He grew up in the same hometown where I was born, but did not live. And he was full of stories he needed to tell me about my father.

I was so shocked and put on the spot, and probably more than a little high, that most of what he said just overwhelmed and washed over me. But at some point he starts telling us about a camping trip he took with my father, right there on this same river. And at this point, all of my friends start to lean in. This is the story he tells:

“We’d been out canoeing and swimmin’ on the river. Right in front of where we’d set up camp, when I realize my watch was gone. Not just any watch—this was the one my dad gave me. Meant the world to me. Soon as I noticed it wasn’t on my wrist, I knew I was in trouble. I said to your dad, ‘I must’ve lost it while we were swimming. My dad’s gonna kill me.’

And Billy Joe says, ‘I can find that watch.’

I just said, ‘There’s no way. This river’s muddy, it’s deep, and it’s moving fast. You’re not gonna find that watch.’

He just nodded and said again, ‘I can find that watch.’

We had another friend with us, also named Bill, and he said, ‘Billy Joe, you will never find that watch. Heck, I’ll bet you five bucks you can’t.’

Billy Joe shrugs and says, ‘I can find it.’

So we paddle back to the spot where we’d been swimming and Billy Joe dives down under the water.

Couple seconds go by. He comes back up, no watch. ‘I’m gonna find that watch,’ he says.

Bill’s like, ‘OK. I got five bucks on it!’

Billy Joe dives again. And again. Still nothing.

By now, people are noticing something’s going on. Canoes are pulling up. Folks are walking down the bank asking, ‘What’s happening?’ Someone points at me and says, ‘He lost his daddy’s watch. That guy’s trying to find it.’ They all look at Billy Joe and say, ‘Boy, you ain’t never gonna find that watch in water like this. That’s crazy.’

But Billy Joe just keeps saying, ‘You wanna put money on it? I can find that watch.’

And suddenly more people are throwing in money. Five here, ten there. Somebody throws in a six-pack of beer. Someone put in fifty. And the whole time, Billy Joe keeps diving. Up and down. Empty-handed. Again and again. He’s out of breath, skin getting pink from the sun, but he won’t stop. The pot keeps growing. A hundred bucks. Two hundred. Three hundred. People are shouting and laughing and placing bets like it’s a prize fight or the Indy 500. I’m just worried about the watch.

Then, the sun starts going down. He’s been at it for hours. And at this point, everyone’s like, ‘This is it. You’re not gonna find it. You gotta give it up.’

Billy Joe says, ‘One more time.’

Everyone goes quiet. I’m in total despair, completely given up. Then, Billy Joe comes up out of the water and he’s holding my watch. He holds it out to me and he’s like, ‘Is this your dad’s watch?’ As if there’d been a bunch to choose from down there. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it!’

Everyone’s cheering, even the folks who lost money. No one’s even mad. Billy Joe walks off with probably four hundred bucks in his pocket and a whole cooler of beer.

That night, we stayed up drinking, eating hot dogs, laughing about the watch. Finally, I looked over at Billy Joe and said, ‘Man, I cannot believe you found that watch. All those dives… and then the very last second?’

And he looks at me as if I’m just off the truck and goes, ‘Gary, I found that watch the first time I went down.’”

Everybody laughs. His friends laugh, all of my friends laugh. It’s a great story. Then the guy invited me to his church.

I made my apologies, told him we had to go, but it was very nice to meet him and thanked him for the stories—whatever else—and we walked away.

Over the years, as I've told this story—which obviously has the feeling of a tall tale, something wildly exaggerated, making my father into Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill or whatever—people have asked me, “Do you believe it's true? Or do you think this guy's just telling wild stories in grand Ozark fashion?” And what I finally came to, over the years of people asking me this question, is this:

Do I believe there was four hundred dollars in the pot as opposed to thirty?
Do I believe that there was a river full of canoes and forty people standing on the bank of the river, as opposed to two canoes and a few guys drinking beers on the bank?
Or do I believe that this went on for hours and hours until the sun began to set, as opposed to my father going up and down three or four times over the course of fifteen minutes?

Likely not.

But what I’ve come to understand is that the fact that the guy wanted the story to be true—the fact that this legend is the way he so desperately wanted to remember my father—that says as much about my dad as any true story, any set of cold dry facts, ever could.