Friday, October 16, 2009

Swimming: Part Two




Once I could swim, my mother had a hard time getting me out of the water. We went to various local pools. Griffith Park’s huge one was kind of scary because of all the older teenagers trying to impress each other.  Much, much later in life I read a “Dear Abby “ column about how it was possible to get impregnated in a public pool from all the wandering sperm.  That was the end of the Griffith Park Pool for me.

There was another, smaller pool in the neighborhood where kids took lessons. It had a really stupid name that I can’t remember. We often went there and I often ignored my mom’s calls to get out of the water.

And then there was Jane’s. Whenever it was really hot, Jane would invite us over to swim.  Not, it always had to be made clear, to pet her bedlington terrier who didn’t like kids—but to swim.

Jane was my mother’s maid of honor.  Jane never married and lived with a woman doctor who never seemed to be there. The two homes they owned together both had pools.  The first home had a deep kidney shaped pool where I perfected my skills with a scuba mask and snorkel.  Needless to say, my favorite television program was SEA HUNT with Lloyd Bridges.  My main-non cowboy- hero was Jacques Cousteau and—after a science fair project—I was an expert on the bathyscape Trieste. (And also at painting a softball gray and adding portholes made out of the ends of an empty toilet paper roll.)

Then Jane moved to a new house that the couple built together. Each woman had a separate wing of the home (Jane's was always a purple theme) and the pool was a perfect rectangle bordered on one side by a sandstone wall and on the other by a deck with orchids. By the time we were invited to this house, I was a teenager and becoming too cool for the pool.  Years later, Jane would open her house to my in-laws when they came from Scotland for our wedding in 1979.  I’m sure that the David Hockney blues of Jane’s pool were a welcome change from the omnipresent grays of Scotland during the December miner’s strike that eventually led to Margaret Thatcher's election.


Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Swimming: Part One


When I was five years old, the day that I had awaited all summer finally arrived.  My mother’s best friend, Hellen, arrived from Seattle with her husband and youngest son, who was my age.  My memories are of Dip ‘N Sticks, Fizzies, Lick M Aid and Hellen’s cigarette smoke, which seemed quite glamorous.


Then one day we all drove to the beach. I think it was La Jolla or Laguna. The two families walked down a sandstone cliff trail and spread the towels and food on the sand.  The two dads and my mom went into the water.  Hellen watched us as my sister, her son and I made sand castles.

I remember hearing the screams of “help me” and I don’t think it really registered that it was MY people who were in trouble.  The riptide pulled them out and under, and only two were rescued.  My parents. My next memory was of being left in the car outside of the mortuary for a very long time. I also remember thinking about giant squids. I must have recently seen Captain Nemo on a Disney program and giant squids were the most frightening things I had ever seen.

I think it must have been the following summer that my mother, sister and I began our regular treks to the Glendale YWCA for swimming lessons. I was in heaven.


I loved the smell of the eye-watering chlorine, the adventure of walking through the two-inch deep foot bath that was meant to prevent athlete’s foot, the lockers with their little keys on a safety-pin that ended up making holes in the fabric of your suit, and the teacher who spread our toes to look for fungus.

There were levels:  Tadpoles and something else and then Sharks.  As my mom sat on the bleachers and watched, I progressed up the ranks.  I quickly became a Shark. The reward was a small, gray felt shark that was meant to be sewn onto my suit.


After each lesson, we would cross the street to a large supermarket that had an ice cream counter.  I think the cones were 5cents.  But that now seems unbelievably cheap and I’m not sure my memory is correct.. My sister wasn’t into the swimming as much as I was.  She was in it for the ice cream.