Swimming lessons

I edited a press release about community swimming lessons for last week’s paper and boy, did that bring back memories. I thought I’d put that childhood trauma behind me.

When I was little, my parents decided I should take swimming lessons. They didn’t want me to drown in the unlikely scenario I voluntarily jumped into any body of water deeper than a wading pool. They were right. Swimming is one of those life skills everyone needs. So, every summer for about six months, I got bundled off to daily swim lessons.

In reality, it was probably only a couple of weeks. It just felt like six months because I was not fond of the water. Water. Spiders. Turnips. Didn’t like any of them when I was 8. Still don’t and you can’t make me so don’t bother trying.

The town where I grew up did not have a municipal pool. There was a motel on the edge of town that had its own pool and for a fee, local kids could go there to swim through the summer. You could buy a membership, which my family did because my mom liked to swim. We went two or three times a week. My friends were there. The water was warm. I liked it, although I mostly did a lot of splashing and very little swimming. I don’t know why my mom didn’t teach me how to swim. I guess she thought the professionals had a better chance of making an impression.

Since Wapello was pool-less (a situation that has since been remedied), the Red Cross swimming lessons were held at the local country club. All of us Mark Phelps wannabees got on a school bus every morning about 5 a.m. (again, I may exaggerate) and were hauled out to Indian Hills Golf and Country Club to be subjected to an hour of water torture. Yes, an hour. These were group lessons with a bunch of other kids who may or may not have wanted to be there either.

June in Iowa follows May in Iowa. May is not necessarily a month filled with warmth and sunshine and as a result, the temperature of the Indian Hills pool in early June was about 56 degrees. I have distinct memories of days when the instructors would not get in the pool with us.

I dutifully put my face in the water and practiced floating and learning the overhand crawl. I learned to breathe while swimming although it seemed like breathing would be much easier if I sat on a chaise lounge in the warm sunshine and avoided any situation in which my nose and mouth were underwater. If God wanted me to breathe in the water, he would have given me gills.

The swimming lesson torture went on for a couple of years. Then I advanced to being subjected to swimming lessons at Girl Scout summer camp and let me tell you, the Olympic sized swimming pool at Camp L-Kee-Ta probably didn’t warm up until some time in late August. In June, when I always went for the obligatory week in canvas tents, it was glacial. Of course, swim lessons were at 8 a.m.

I survived. I passed Beginners, Advanced Beginners and Intermediate. I jumped off the diving board and swam out of the deep end and no one had to rescue me so I guess my instructors decided that was good enough.

That was 50 years ago but to this day, the words “swimming lessons” bring back memories of chlorine and goose bumps and riding back to town in a clammy swimming suit.

I’m going to sit in the sun now, until I warm up.

Comments: Melinda.Wichmann@southeastiowaunion.com