I Was in Pain and Then It Stopped

D AV I D DON D IEGO PICNIC AT SEPULCHER FALLS My wife and I were spending a weekend at Tarrytown, New York, the hometown of the legendary author Washington Irving. It was a gorgeous sunny day in late May. We decided to take a picnic lunch with us to Sepulcher Falls Park. Nora, my wife, being very fair skinned, did not want to get her self sunburned. We agreed to walk through the park till we arrived at our chosen destination, Peak’s Waterfall. We sought a fine shady spot in which to break out our picnic. It didn’t take us long to settle ourselves under a large Maple tree that had many low hanging leafy branches and provided lots of shade.

I spread out our blue and white checkered cotton blanket on top of the greenest grass in the shade of the Maple tree.

Nora prepared a lunch of tuna fish sandwiches with olives stuffed with pimentos and slices of red peppers on French baguettes. We drank Coca Cola out of cans and talked about the Legend Of Sleepy Hollow and how Ichabod Crane was thrown off his horse by a pumpkin, tossed at him by the legendary headless horseman. I made Nora laugh when I told her that the pumpkin must have been loaded with seeds. Nora was also loaded with seed and was five months pregnant. We were about to have our first child.

It was a hot day so we both came prepared with our swimwear under our clothing. After lunch we both doffed our clothing and laid it rolled up on the blanket. I teased Nora about not wanting to go into the water but it was I who was a bit apprehensive about immersing myself. It was a small pool, about thirty feet in diameter, fed by a waterfall that gushed 54