Weekend Rewind 10/28/17

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Swimming Lessons!

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I thought every town had a swimming pool like the one in my hometown. You know, a pool as big as several city blocks and thousands of feet deep. I spent a few weeks there, every Summer, taking swimming lessons.

The freshwater spring fed pool was always drained and painted with a beautiful aqua blue-green paint before the start of the Summer season. After the pool was refilled, enough chlorine was added to strike fear in the heart of every blond-haired child. If you saw someone with green tinted hair, you knew they were taking swimming lessons.

Even after a few years of taking lessons, I can swim enough to save my life, but it’s not my forte. And I sure don’t do it for enjoyment or exercise. But if I had to swim a short distance to run from a shark or something, I’d try my best.

Every time I get in a pool, I have flashbacks of the swimming lessons every year. I was nervous and excited at the same time. Once I got passed the fear of taking off my T-shirt to expose my pudgy, glowing white torso, I then had to face the fear of the water itself.

I was a heavy child. I always tended to sink easily.

Along with dozens of other kids, I sat along the concrete wall that divided the kiddie section of the pool and the deep end, and awaited instructions. The deep end had a few feet of concrete along the bottom of the pool, where I could tip toe and still touch. That was just before the edge where the bottom dropped off to the depths of something that was comparable to the Grand Canyon, I was sure.

The instructor, usually a much older High School student, would tell each one of us to swim to him or her, then back to the concrete wall. I could do that with ease. I don’t know who had the bright idea that we should advance to the deep area and jump off the big pier.

“Do we really have to advance in this class? I’m good right here. Hanging on to this wall” I thought.

But along with all the others, I walked in line down the concrete sidewalk. We walked passed the giant metal slide that would get so hot in the Sun, that it would burn the skin on the backs of your legs on the way down, and continued to the big pier, like it was my final walk to the electric chair.

I was tricked! I was told to squat down on the edge of the pier and look over the edge to get used to the feel. Suddenly, I felt a foot against my bottom. The next thing I knew, I was being pushed over the edge of the pier by the instructor, going face down into the bottomless water.

My short life flashed before my eyes.

I’m pretty sure I inhaled most of the water from the deep end of the pool before I felt someone grab my arm and pulled me up to the pier.

I survived my last lesson. I didn’t go back. And I still don’t much like to get in a pool. But I learned a big lesson.

Don't ever trust someone to stand behind you while you are squatting on the edge of a pier. Never. Just trust me. Stay on the kiddie wall.

From the mind of me.