"What I did with my Olympic diving medal"*

  

Yep. He did it. He climbed the little tower to the even tinier platform that was eighty feet above the water's surface. Then he dove off. The climb seemed like the hard part because this guy has been diving off university diving platforms since he was a kid, but accessed those by stairs.

He was one of a half dozen people who performed three times a day to the upturned faces of hundreds of awed spectators at the Indiana State Fair, myself among them. For the past ten years, I've often watched competitive divers learning, practicing, and honing their skills at the IU Natatorium, so there was no way I'd miss this show. 

When I was a girl, I once went to a nearby shopping center to see a man named Barney Cipriani climb a similar tall, skinny tower to dive into another tank full of water. Some years later, I remember watching Cipriani taking part in a cliff diving competition in Acapulco that was shown on ABC's Wide World of Sports. 

On occasion, I've wondered whatever became of the traveling high divers, thinking that a jaded public was no longer interested in watching people hurl themselves into space, turning and twisting as they plunged towards the pool many feet below. Apparently, they're alive and well, taking their act (and their babies) on the road during the summers. And people are just as willing to watch them. 

* I'm being facetious: There were no Olympic medals involved here.