A boyhood on the edge of a Louisiana swamp is fraught with danger, some real but most imagined. An example of the latter occurred when as adolescents my neighborhood gang would gather at the White's Ferry Bridge to swim on hot, summer days. The event began as we jumped from the high bridge into Bayou D'Arbonne below. The older boys always warned us of an instant death that would befall us should we be so unfortunate as to do a belly-buster from that height. Next in the line of perils was the alleged, near-death experience of jumping into a swarm of whirligig water bugs that frequented the placid water of the bayou.
