When I lugged my scuba gear to Field House at Gallaudet late last fall, had you popped up from a bush to ask me what I thought of Irving King Jordan, soon-to-be President Emeritus, I’d have snorted in disgust.

He had every right to disagree with the protest. However, he never bothered to at least understand the underlying causes, instead choosing to stamp lowest-denominator motives on the restless natives. Granted, the causes weren’t easy to understand. But he was president, not a sideline spectator. Closing his eyes resulted in comments and actions that made things worse.

But since you didn’t pop up on me like that, he remained far in the back of my mind. I took scuba diving in Spring of last year but didn’t get certified because I couldn’t make it to the certification trip which consumed a whole weekend in late April, when the finals and term papers were looming on the horizons. The instructor told me I could join her class on the trip in the fall to get certified. Come fall, it slipped from my mind until somebody taking the class mentioned the trip during late November.

I showed up for what was the last weekly session. Since the students were taking the final exam, I was the first person to arrive at the pool. I entered the locker room and, lo and behold, stood Dr. Jordan in swimwear.

I was surprised to see him there for a couple of reasons. I forgot that he was an assistant scuba instructor. But more significantly, that he was still assisting the class. I had subconsciously assumed that he’d shun any further interaction with students after what happened.

I greeted him politely, changed, jumped into the pool and did some warm-up laps. The instructor and her students eventually came.

The instructor wasn’t happy. She said I should’ve come two or three weeks earlier to shake off my rust. She was right. I wished I made a better use of my Sidekick by, like, using its reminder feature or something. She said if I didn’t go through the procedures flawlessly, I couldn’t go on the trip. I had already rented a wetsuit for $80.

Not only did I have to smoothly reenact what I had not even mentally rehearsed for months, I had to do something new. It was the first time I donned an actual wetsuit. I thought it was no big deal. But with a 7mm suit (the thickest available because we’d be diving in a frigid quarry), diving turned out to be a completely different experience.

It was brutal just squeezing myself into the suit. I sweated like a hog and when I was done, the very last thing I needed was to be covered head-to-toe with a suffocating skintight suit. A sauna seemed almost arctic in comparsion. It was also thick enough to give me the flexibility of a penguin. Watching war prisoners doing aerobics in 7mm wetsuits would make a poet out of Donald Rumsfeld. Wait, he already is.

Then it turned out that I could remember the exact procedure to hook up the scuba equipment…very vaguely. I was panting, lightheaded, dazed. The instructor made faces at me–frowning, rolling her eyes, shaking her head, and, I think, sighing loudly. Patience was never her strongest suit. The chances of going on the trip were sinking fast.

I was already boiling inside that suit. But when a heavy oxygen tank was placed on my back,  my body labored to stay balanced while my mind continued to grope for the lost lessons, my misery had reached a new level. Diving into the 75-degree pool water didn’t cool me down one bit. I felt like a heat stroke-stricken whale flopping about. I wondered how the hell I got to that point. Without a doubt, it was my worst moment in the entire year of 2006.

And there stood Dr. Jordan on the poolside, doing everything in his power to help me, his eyes glistening earnestly for my success. He gave me his utmost personal attention, generously urging and encouraging me while giving instructions. He was persistent. He never lost patience nor did he become exasperated. His actions showed that, by God, he wanted to see me succeed, get certified. He was my only beacon of hope at Field House that night. At that point, I had come to believe that if I was unconscious in a burning building, he’d charge in and carry me out in his arms and even come back to save a litter of newborn kittens, if I had any.

I wish this story had a happy ending. But my attempt to “flawlessly” execute procedures without any prior refreshing lessons was futile.

The instructor unplugged the life support. “Come back this spring. And come for at least three classes like I told you!” She walked away huffing. IKJ offered some sympathetic support, saying I’d do better next time.

At least I got the $80 back.

I got out of the dastardly suit and was getting ready to leave. IKJ was underwater, doing laps with the scuba equipment. Somebody asked where he was. I pointed to the shadow slipping through the pool water. And I chuckled, “Yup, that’s our president.”

Then he wrote that utterly pointless, bitter Op-ed slamming a marginalized minority and an endangered university that he had earned millions of dollars presiding.

Who said people were simple?