The Chase Short Story

Reading the story “The Chase” took me back to an event I feel if I had to judge anything that grossly affected my life this event without a dough takes the cake. Picture this am twelve years old and it is the first day of summer. It is the day my friends and I waited for all winter, opening season for swimming. Each day my friends and I took the long anticipated walk to the local swimming area “Lake Sona Vista”. This was the recreation area the black families who lived in Hartsville, South Carolina used for recreational family get together (cookout, family reunions, parties, and swimming). On the park’s grounds there was a clubhouse made of grey brick blocks. The house, or should I say clubhouse had a total of 6 rooms. The first room was the
I had woken up that morning feel something great would happen. In all my imagination I would have never though it would be a group of black kids entering Lawton park gates to swim and dive on that beautiful diving board. This day my friends and I left Lake Sona Vista early. Our travels back home brought us by Lawton’s park. We stopped and watched the kids from the gate splashing around in the water. A large teenager jumped from the diving board and made a huge splash at that moment something came over me. I looked at my friends with the look they had never seen come from me. My look made the statement no longer will I stand outside this gate and watch the children in that park swim and dive without me participating. I told my friends “I am going hoping they would follow me. My friends looked at me as if was crazy, but they all nodded their heads up and down to signaling yes. We walked into the gate and like in a movie everyone in that park stop as if time stood still for a moment. I could feel their eyes burning a hole right through me and friends' bodies. We walk closer and closer to the swimming area and the kids were still looking. We all took seats on a park bench placed at the edge of the swim area and remove our shoes. The crowd of children and their families were looking as if to say “I know they don’t think they are going to be allowed to swim here”. Now that we have removed our shoes we walk to the edge of the water. One foot is in then the next before long my friends and I are swimming around like a school of fish. The families continued to stair, some of the adults gather their belonging and children and left the park. The lifeguards were staring at us with the look of confusion, however no one approaches us and asks us to leave. The remaining kids in the swimming area were teenagers. They start to circle around us like sharks preparing for an eating frenzy. Surprisingly one boy approached us and