CONFESSIONS OF A DIVE GUIDE
By Lenny Oberg
Mr. Wrapit’s Snorkel
Over the last few years, working with Fish ‘n Fins, here in Palau as a dive guide, I’ve had the opportunity and pleasure to meet a array of divers from all over the world. It’s during the 45 minute boat ride from the dive shop to the dive sites that one gets the occasion to talk and become better acquainted with the divers. None however have left altogether the same impression as a Mr. Wrapit from Tucumcari, New Mexico. Mr. Wrapit was a small unassuming man, and despite coming from Tucumcari, New Mexico, his skin was so white that it had the appearance of having a slight blue tint. While the other divers engaged in typical divers’ conversation, such as all the various locations they had dived, or how long they have been diving, or what was the deepest they have been. Mr. Wrapit sat alone in the corner of the boat, and even though he had one towel that he had taken from the hotel, completely wrapped over his head and another one around his frail body, he still tried to take advantage of what little shade he could find. Sensing the poor Mr. Wrapit was being left out; I attempted to bring him into the conversation. It all commenced when I happened to take notice of Mr. Wrapit’s snorkel, and made an innocent inquiry as to how he had come to acquire such a unique article of diving equipment. It is his response that I will try and relate, to the best of my recollection, to you at this time.
“Well Sir,” he commenced, holding up the item in question, and cradled between his hands more like a delicate piece of fine crystal, than the extruded polyurethane plastic , that it in fact was. “This is the finest snorkel that has ever been, and it’s no accident that it has come into my procession. It was given to me by a man with the name of Eugene Filbert, perhaps you you’ve heard of him: his father was a Baptist Deacon, and an ex-Mafia con man. It was the older Filbert that caused my grandfather, Alfredo Q. Wrapit, to move from Nashville, Tennessee to Tucumcari, New Mexico where he meet his future bride, my grandmother, Geraldine Wrapit who at the time was working at a 24 hour truck stop, flipping flapjacks early in the mornings and banging burgers later in the evening for weary truck divers making their way across the country. Geraldine was one of the finest and gentlest woman one could ever meet, but could be strong willed at times. It certainly was no accident the time that Larry Brambila, a slightly over weight dry wall hanger, became overly annoyed when he was discovered that that fresh squeezed orange juice was not fresh but was made from concentrate. And to make matters worse, from California and not Florida, as stated on the special breakfast menu. You see Larry Brambila was…No, it wasn’t Larry Brambila after all, it was Roy Haubert. Roy’s wife, Stella had been truly beautiful in her youth, and it was no accident that she was second runner up in the Miss Tucumcari beauty contest, and would have won if it wasn’t for the bathing suit competition, which showed off her tattoo a little more than she wanted but not as much as some of the judges would have liked to see. Most everybody firmly believe that that it wasn’t by accident that folks really began to see just how generous she really was, till that tragic incident with little Joey Juppe’s sling shot. Stella would lend her glass eye to Miss Amy Zitko. Miss Amy had lost her left eye during a unfortunate accident involving a mishap with an experimental piece of farm equipment that the University of New Mexico was developing to assist local farmers with the harvesting of Casaba melons. Only problem was that it, the glass eye, just wasn’t big enough, and would, when Miss Amy wasn’t paying close attention, get twisted in the socket and look up, or wander to one side or the other, while one was looking straight ahead. Most of the adults didn’t mind and had become quite accustom to it, but it would make some of the younger children point and cry. It was kind of scary. She tried packing or wrapping it with small pieces of cotton that she liberated from a large economy bottle of Bayer Aspin. Only it wouldn’t do much good, and somehow it would work loose and stick out and look kind of weird. It was always dropping out and she never could tell, being on her blind side. Sooner or later someone would have to inform her that her eye had fallen out again, and everybody would have to sit still and not move around until she retrieved it and jammed it back in again. Some times she jammed it in the wrong side out, which really didn’t matter that much as Miss Amy’s good eye was sky blue and the glass one was brown, so no matter which way it went back in, it didn’t match up anyways. Miss Amy had no problem with borrowing things and would appropriate Mrs. Blogs wooden leg now and again to get around on. Even though it was considerable shorter than her own , she said she didn’t mind as it was much better that trying to get around on crutches that tended to slow her down. Hardly anyone but a few of her closest friends knew that she was a bald as a Ballard ball and would barrow Mrs. Williams blonde wig Saturday evenings so she could wear it to attend church the next morning.
Mr. and Mrs. Williams oldest daughter Norma had married a missionary by the name of Cletus Gonzalez. You can imagine the surprise and disbelief the town’s people felt when they learned that Cletus was eaten by savages! Evidently the savages never got the message of “Brotherly Love” that Cletus was trying to get across and the only time really seemed to sit up and take any notice introduced them to the fine art of barbecue. Some say it was an Accident that poor Cletus was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t tell me that it was an accident that he was roasted, there’s no such thing as an accident. When my uncle Renaldo was standing under a scaffolding once, sick or drunk or something, an Irishman with his wheel barrel full of red clay bricks fell on the old man from three stories up and broke his back in two places. People said it was an accident, because uncle Renaldo didn’t know how or why he was there, but I think he was there for a purpose. If he hadn’t been there at that precise place and exact time that Irishman would have been killed. Nobody can make me believe any different. Uncle Renaldo’s dog was there. Why didn’t the Irishman fall on him? Simple, the dog would have seen him coming and moved away. Accidents don’t happen, it was suppose to be. Uncle Renaldo’s dog was a pure breed Sheppard, or would have been if it wasn’t for that pit bull. I have a picture of him in my dry box and when I get a chance I’ll show you. Uncle Rolando’s dog previous owner was the late A.J. Thiem. No one was ever sure what the A. J. stood for, that’s why they called him Willie. Willie worked is a small carpet mill that made Astroturf and it wasn’t by accident that he fell into the machinery one day and went though is less than a minute. His widow ended up having to buy the piece of Astroturf with Willie all woven in, and people came from miles around for the funeral. There was a little over 2twenty yards rolled out. It was raining that day and people attending the service had mud on their shoes and were generally making a mess in the Church of Divine Destiny, so a vote was taken and I can assure you that it was no accident that they never buried poor old Willie, and till this day, people say Willie finally has a purpose.
It was so quit you could hear an o-ring hit the deck. No one said a word as we put our dive gear together and struggled into our wet suits. I was the last one into the water and as I gently glided down into the crystal blue water I couldn’t help thinking, that it may be true the in outer space no one can hear you scream, it’s was equally true that at sixty feet under water everyone may indeed hear you scream, but they don’t necessary know exactly why!
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