By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
It was hard to feel smug, even after emerging with a violent shiver from the waves of Medical Lake during the fourth annual Polar Plunge last Saturday, Feb. 27.
As a first time plunger, the 40-degree water felt plenty cold to me, but I kept hearing seasoned plungers gloat about last year, as in: “Last year they had to cut through a foot of ice and swimmers had to brave a blizzard to get to the lake,” or “Last year it was minus 30 degrees and an honest-to-God polar bear tore the roof clean off the changing tent.”
Fact or fiction, these bygone tales made Saturday's spring-like temperatures and lack of lake ice seem a bit too cozy, so in order to make myself feel more noble and courageous I searched out some chickens – those opting to stay high and dry in the on shore “cheering section.” I figured their arsenal of excuses could galvanize me a little before I stripped down to my trunks in support of a good cause.
Most excuses outrageously suggested that those of us jumping in the lake were not actually brave but were instead “crazy.” Needless to say I shrugged off these insults as the grasping justifications of the cowardly.
Others resorted to lies, as in the case of a Numerica Credit Union team member who said he was “allergic to water,” while sipping some clear, wet looking fluid out of a plastic bottle. A Medical Lake High School Key Club member dubiously said, “I only jump in the Polar Plunge when it's polar outside… It's go big or go home.”
Meanwhile, a non-plunging member of Team WSECU claimed she had, in fact, actively participated in the event for the past two years, but decided to send herself a reminder e-mail to recalling the many reasons she shouldn't jump this time around.
Unlike your own intrepid Cheney Free Press Polar Plunge crew – newsroom king John McCallum, sales diva DeAnn Gibb and myself – I didn't see any other local media personnel get wet. The KHQ cameraman said it was such a nice day he was “halfway tempted” to jump in, before quickly adding that he wasn't about to jump in.
Many people justified their landlubber ways by claiming themselves to be in charge of something. Members of the Medical Lake SCOPE station said they had to guard the changing tents, a man with a video camera said he was acting in a “supervisory position” of some sort and a woman holding a baby said she had to watch her baby (likely story).
But Cheney Councilman Graeme Webster may have had the best, or at least the most candid, excuse of the day, simply saying, “Maximum shrinkage, and you can quote me on that.” So I did.
At the end of the day, we valiant plungers could never have mustered the courage to run screaming into the wake if not for the cheering crowd on shore. With the lively accompaniment of the Medical Lake High School pep band backing them up, everyone present did an outstanding job in the moral and financial support category.
And as far as all that comfortable sunshine and frost-free water? Sure, it destroyed the prospect of telling my own batch of harrowing tales to next year's newbie plungers, but the weather also played a part in getting 140 people to jump in the lake, raising a whopping $31,000 to benefit Washington Special Olympics.
Here's hoping for a cloudless sky and 70 degree temperatures next February.
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