The Incredible Miles

How a Humble Pool Guy Gave The Year's Best Graduation Speech

Every week for the last twenty years, Miles Derwin serviced two hundred pools across Santa Barbara County. Everything from deep lap pools built in the 1950s to small 8,000-gallon grottos. A famous rock star working on his third liver had built one in the shape of a guitar, complete with lane lines running the length of the neck so it looked like strings from high above.

All that pool cleaning had filled the thirty-six-year-old with vast knowledge across a variety of subjects. Chemistry and plumbing of course, but he was also proficient at math and meteorology and even biology. Miles had scooped out every species of bug, plant, and small mammal that called Southern California home during his time in the pool business. And whenever he found a rattlesnake coiled up behind a heater, he chopped off its head and brought the carcass home in a bucket so his girlfriend Dawn could boil the skin and make it into a custom fishing rod she’d sell on eBay for four hundred bucks a pop.

Then there were the skills Miles had picked up from his wealthy customers. A chef with seven Michelin stars had taught Miles the perfect way to prepare a medium rare filet mignon. A bestselling author had taught him the art of good storytelling. A retired stuntman taught him how to take a punch and land a convincing prat fall. When Miles started his career, he was just a sunburned high school dropout driving a pickup truck filled with cancer-causing chemicals. In the time since, he had evolved—one pool at a time—into the most well-rounded and cultured man in Santa Barbara.

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The way Miles saw it, his ability to discuss pH levels or yank a dead gopher from a pool vac could now be a gateway to a deeper conversation with his customers. You want to talk about pop art and its enduring appeal with upper-class collectors? Miles could do that. Worried about China’s role in the depletion of the global fish population? Miles had solutions. Or maybe you just needed to process childhood trauma and didn’t know where to begin. Miles was better than most licensed therapists.

But every time Miles made such an effort, he quickly learned that for all the wisdom his customers had given him over the years, almost no one wanted to hear any of his. Even when he opened a gate to find a customer floating on a raft in the deep end—a captive audience if there ever was one—the moment he tried speaking truth they were wiggling and kicking their way back to the steps.

Miles couldn’t help but be hurt. The subtext of it all was clear. They were the experts at this thing called life, not him. It stung even more when his phone sent him reels of these same elite customers bloviating on podcasts or speaking to a government subcommittee or holding court at some gala to which he would never be invited. The biggest insult came when he saw the rock star with the guitar-shaped pool giving the graduation speech at UC Santa Barbara.

“That’s my school!,” Miles vented to Dawn.

“You didn’t even finish high school,” she answered as she peeled the skin off a rattlesnake.

“I mean I clean the pool there,” he said. “And anyway, education doesn’t even factor into that sort of decision. All anyone wants these days is someone who brings them eyeballs.”

“Eyeballs?”

“I’m talking about clicks, Dawn. That’s what they care about. CLICKS. And I can do a lot of things, but I can’t generate clicks.”

Miles was right. For all of his 21st century talents, he lacked what had sadly become the most valuable one: notoriety.

Dawn hung the cleaned snakeskin on a wire hanger over the fireplace and wiped her hands on her sweatpants. “I mean, if you really want to speak at a stupid graduation, I can probably make that happen,” she said.

Miles scoffed at the suggestion. “Yeah right. Where?”

“At the Academy,” she said.

Dawn managed the front office for the Santa Barbara Dog Academy, a hoity-toity obedience school in the foothills above downtown. For $9500 a semester, the SBDA’s award-winning trainers could take even the jumpiest inbred Labrador and shape it into a calm and loving household pet. The 14-week program climaxed with graduation day, where every pup received a diploma and every owner received the ability to brag that their dog was not just any old mutt but an SBDA graduate.

“Terri put me in charge of it this year,” Dawn explained. “I’ve got five minutes I’m supposed to fill with ‘entertainment’ and none of the magicians have called me back yet.”

In all honesty, Miles was hoping for a venue with a little more gravitas to make his public debut. But he was humble and knew everyone has to start somewhere. “I’m in,” he said before Dawn could change her mind.

THE GROUNDS OF THE SANTA BARBARA DOG ACADEMY

Miles immediately got to work, asking himself what a graduating class of dogs and owners needed to hear at such a pivotal moment in their lives. He scribbled notes about loyalty. Thoughts on the enduring value of friendship. He affirmed the owners for putting a high value on civility in an age of rancor. Then he ended with a Mark Twain quote and an original joke about not eating your diploma. When he timed it, it was four minutes and fifty seconds. Adding in applause at both ends and some laughs for his joke, he safely assumed it would be the highlight of the event.

Unfortunately, Terri Weegan didn’t think so. Terri was the stuffy owner of Santa Barbara Dog Academy and mother to six King Charles spaniels. She and her partner Elise started SBDA in their backyard in 1991 and had watched it blossom into a business that now netted them a few million dollars a year. They coveted their reputation as the city’s premier dog obedience school and enjoyed the downfall of every rival who had ever tried to supplant them.

Terri knew that it was a mistake to ask Dawn to find the entertainment for the graduation. She would have just handled it herself but Elise had surprised her with a weekend trip to Cambria and insisted she delegate the task to someone else. “You’re sixty years old,” Elise explained. “It’s time to start letting the underlings do things.”

Terri relented and tried to enjoy the getaway but couldn’t. They overpaid for a dog-friendly bed and breakfast then she got sick from a bad latte at a local Starbucks that smelled strange the moment they walked in. Terri was straddling a toilet surrounded by her half-dozen dogs when phone calls and texts started coming in from concerned SBDA owners:

“Who is Miles Derwin?”

“Is this graduation speaker properly vetted?”

“I think he cleans my pool.”

Elise drove home to Santa Barbara while Terri stretched out in the backseat with the spaniels spread across the length of her body like a blanket of brown and white fur. She summoned Dawn to her office the next morning.

“I need you to uninvite the graduation speaker,” Terri said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dawn asked, not admitting that she and Miles shared the mortgage on a first-floor condo overlooking the freeway.

“He’s completely unqualified.”

“The guy interacts with a hundred dogs a day,” Dawn persisted.

Terri shook her head. “Our owners are the people who keep us in business. Whatever they say goes. And they don’t feel comfortable with the man who skims leaves out of their pool pretending like he has something noteworthy to tell them—or their pets.”

Miles worked late that evening, dealing with a yellow algae problem at a Montecito estate. When he walked in the front door, Dawn was waiting for him. She felt extra bad when she saw the rattlesnake bucket in his hand. “Sit down, babe,” she said.

Miles took the news well. He hardly showed any emotion whatsoever. He just nodded. When Dawn was done, Miles stood back up. “Too bad,” he said, then he exited back out of the front door. Dawn watched as he trudged to his Coastal Pools pickup truck and sat on the hood.

He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t sullen. He was scheming.

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On graduation day, Dawn woke up and Miles was already gone. There was nothing unusual about that. He usually serviced his first pool by 6:30, especially as the days got longer and hotter. He had left her a warm pot of steel-cut oats on the stove along with a note, “Record the graduation for me,” it said.

The caravan of luxury SUVs filed onto the sprawling ranch property of the SBDA shortly after eleven. At Terri’s behest, Boy Scouts from Troop 26 directed traffic in exchange for community service hours. Once parked, like a ballet, the back seats and tailgates of all makes and models opened in unison, revealing their prized occupants. Seventy percent of the class were of the mixed poodle variety, dominated by goldendoodles, cockapoos, schnoodles, Labradoodles, and yorkiepoos. Twenty percent fell into the toy dog category: your Havanese, bichon frisé, and pomeranians. The last ten percent were the big boys: Bernese mountain dogs, golden retrievers, and Newfoundlands, along with one doberman pinscher.

A MEMBER OF THE SBDA GRADUATING CLASS

The graduates processed in on leashes and in strollers with miniature mortarboards on their heads, showcasing their education by not peeing on any of the rose bushes that lined the path from the dirt parking lot. A small riser had been erected on one end of the lush lawn under a pair of hundred-year-old oak trees. A jazz ensemble played a bouncy rendition of “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

At eleven thirty, Terri took the stage and warmly welcomed the class. She thanked the owners for their partnership and her trainers for being the unsung heroes of SBDA. There was no mention of Dawn, whose role for the event had been reduced to picking up dog poop. After a slide show, Terri welcomed “The Incredible Igor,” a Ukrainian refugee she’d recently stumbled on who was his country’s foremost veterinarian before having to flee and start over in Southern California. While waiting for his American accreditation, he had become a humble street performer, but chose not to play the victim and recently set a Guinness Record for making the world’s fastest balloon animal. He was an inspiration.

Led by warm applause, Igor strode to the podium wearing a graduation robe, cap, and sunglasses. He had a deep tan, owing undoubtedly to all those hours on the street. “Thank you very much,” he said. The crowd was impressed by his near fluent English. Dawn looked up and took note of his voice too. Because The Incredible Igor was clearly her boyfriend Miles.

“It is an honor to be in the presence of such, how do you say, fancy pants?” The crowd laughed, enjoying Igor’s effort at American humor and not disagreeing with the sentiment. Then Miles stepped off the stage and made his way into the crowd, taking a long, thin balloon from his pocket. “Even though it has been two long years since I escaped Kyiv, it still feels like yesterday…” he said. The crowd hung on the brave immigrant’s every word. Even the dogs perked up as he passed. The owners patted them on their heads and offered them a treat, believing that Igor just had a natural electricity that drew animals to him. Like a modern St. Francis. In reality, Miles had lined the inside of his graduation robe with medium rare filet mignons that he had grilled to perfection before the sun came up.

“I can still hear the sound of bullets whizzing past me as I ran, sure that the next one would send me to the grave…” A few of the big dogs began to tug on their leashes. Miles kept moving. “Up until that point in my life, I had only ever prayed on my knees, but here I was praying as I ran…” The owners leaned in just like the graduates. “‘God, rescue me from this nightmare. Send me somewhere peaceful. A place where I can serve. A place where people know how to love the mighty and the lowly with equal devotion. And God, if I am not being too greedy, a place near the ocean… with lots of dogs.” The owners were in tears now, Miles’ storytelling distracting them from the fact their pets were being worked into a full lather.

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Miles returned to the stage and pulled a small air pump from somewhere under his robe. “And then I received a call from a stranger. Who lived in a city I had never heard of. A city called Santa Barbara…” Miles blew up the balloon little by little. “‘Come,’ he said.” A few of the dogs lurched forward at the familiar command. “But I told him, ‘I am not worthy. I am just a humble animal doctor.’” The balloon grew bigger. “‘COME!’ he insisted.” More dogs pulled on their leashes. The doodles started to bark. “‘No, I cannot leave my homeland,’ I explained. I was too blind to see that my prayer had been answered.”

The balloon was huge now, stretched to its limits. “And then one final time this kind man begged of me: ‘COME!!’” All the dogs were barking now. The owners tried to hold on tight but were losing their grip. Even the Pomeranians nipped at their handlers, turning their fluffy backs on fourteen weeks of SBDA training in exchange for red meat and the clarion call from stage.

On cue, Miles gave his overinflated balloon one last pump and—

POP!

It was the ideal decibel to spook both the dogs and their owners, who dropped their leashes when they heard it, allowing the entire SBDA graduating class to rush the stage. There was a beautiful freedom to it. Dogs of all breeds, big and small, tongues hanging, tails wagging, running free in joyful disobedience.

Terri screamed in horror from the lawn. Miles waited until the first dogs were mid-jump then tumbled backwards in a perfectly executed pratfall. They tore at his robe. They feasted on his medium rare filets. They splattered the first three rows and the stack of white diplomas with pink shards of what everyone assumed was human flesh. “DO SOMETHING!” one of the owners in the back yelled out. No one could move. They were frozen by the devastating belief that the SBDA had turned their precious angels into an army of trained killers.

When it seemed to Dawn like she had recorded enough footage to satisfy Miles’ request, she pushed through the mob gripping an abandoned dog stroller. With a pair of cockapoos still clinging to him, Miles crawled to the edge of the stage then threw himself face first on top of the getaway vehicle. As Dawn peeled away, a 130-pound Bullmastiff tried to mount Miles for one last lick but came in too hot and took out Terri instead. With Dawn now running at full speed, the boys from Troop 26 cleared a path, ready as needed to put their first aid skills to use and get a heroic write-up in Scout Life magazine. But Dawn waved them off, dumping the lifeless body of The Incredible Igor in her backseat and floored it to what everyone assumed would be the nearest hospital.

In actuality, Miles’ pickup truck was hidden around the block. He dropped his meatsoaked clothes into a drum of chlorine, changed into shorts and his standard bleached Coastal Pools t-shirt, then sped to his next appointment to secure a firm alibi.

Before the end of the week, the SBDA received a certified letter from a Ukrainian-based law firm threatening a significant lawsuit, citing personal injury and psychological trauma to one of their country’s most decorated veterinarians. The letter also suggested The Incredible Igor was willing and ready to take the stand as an expert witness for the state if anyone brought civil charges of animal cruelty.

Forty-eight hours after the letter was received, a downtown P.O. box had an NDA ready to be signed in exchange for a cashier’s check in the amount of three million dollars.

Desperate to salvage her reputation, Terri reimbursed tuition for all their recent graduates. She also offered Dawn an overdue promotion and a raise, citing her bravery and quick thinking, but once Igor’s check cleared, Dawn gave her two weeks’ notice. She still had a few good years left on her biological clock and she and Miles hoped to make the most of them.

Miles, meanwhile, kept cleaning pools. He never got around to watching the video of his speech. It would have undoubtedly gotten “clicks” if Dawn had posted it, but Miles no longer had any interest in notoriety. Instead, it was the possibility of fatherhood that thrilled him. He had so many wonderful things to share.