Swimmingly

Who doesn’t remember the fun times swimming as they grew up whether in oceans, lakes, streams, swimming pools, or rivers? Often we learned by jumping in from diving boards, boulders, beaches, or high banks of earth. I don’t remember where I had my first encounter with water other than being bathed by my mom Sybil Beck in our kitchen sink and later in the family bathtub.

Some of my memories in life were of swimming in the creek below my parent’s house with the neighbor boys. The creek was fed by springs, melting snow, and ice. The stream was in shadow much of the way, gaining very little heat from the sun. The deepest pool under the bridge became the yearly challenge of being in the water by the 1st of May. The water was frigid. The only thing that kept us from hypothermia was the huge bonfire we built before taking the plunge.

Swimming in the local high school pool for gym class was very interesting. The chlorine was so intense that it cleared the sinuses and burned the eyes. Then all of the boys swam naked.

We also shucked our clothes when the boys swam in Indian Creek after playing many innings of softball to cool off. Hot and sweaty, the water was sweet relief. We’d duck under the water playing tag or when the occasional train would pass by.

Other times of swimming, I remember walking a mile to a friends’ farm and climbing onto their primer-gray Ford tractor. Six or 7 kids clung the fenders or straddled the hood for the ride to White Bridge near Roger Mill, Pennsylvania for a swim. There were no nude beaches there. We wore shorts or swim trunks because girls, mothers, and fathers were present.

Several times I swam with our Boy Scout troop. In ponds we would sometimes wrestle with a lard covered watermelon. We occasionally went to a swimming pool at a local park called Cutty’s. It had a wide swimming area having several depths, a slide, and a diving board.

A few times I swam in the Atlantic Ocean. The first was in Florida visiting relatives and much later while vacationing in Virginia.

While in the Navy I was stationed in Iceland. There I swam in a huge pool that had 3 hot tubs along the poolside, each one growing progressively hotter. The only thing hotter than the hot tubs was an Icelandic beauty with long blonde hair wearing a white terrycloth bikini. Now that was swimming.