Yes, it would have been a justified ass whipping, I quite agree.
I could not swim yet I kept pushing the envelop until I found myself in too deep.
How I survived my childhood I do not know.
I was such a damned fool kid I really thought I was indestrucable.
I fell off cliffs, I got hit by cars, I got caught in a sewage drain in a downpour and damned near drowd again, I fell into the ice covered Delaware river and was swept under the ice; I got chillblains cause I got lost in a blizzard for 16 hours and I somehow managed to survive it all.
Charles Dickens called kids like me: "the indestructable children of the poor".
Dumb luck or a guardian angel is the only explanation for my having lived this long.