We were laying out a picnic on a
big flat rock beside the Yuba River
below the Bridgeport Bridge when a couple of
kids came running down the bank and
as soon as they saw us
I guess they knew
we would have had to have
seen their father still
thrashing and splashing and
trying to swim.
He was swept away from a beautiful
pool about a mile upriver,
where the river grinds stone into
sand and the sand can
suddenly slip away
and eventually the
EMT's from Yuba City picked up the kids
in their all-purpose
hearse and ambulance
and there are worse
ways to die than drowning in the
Yuba River below the Bridgeport Bridge,
where the river runs fast and cold and clear.
