I don’t know how to swim.  I had several chances to take lessons in grade school, but I hated having to wear the navy blue speedo they issued before heading to the pool.  So on swimming day, I usually came down with some nebulous condition to get me out of it.  I think I did a couple of lessons when the excuses ran thin, but by that time I was weeks behind the rest of the class. They were up to diving and I was still doggy paddling off to the side.  So I don’t blame myself for this.  I blame the navy blue speedo they claim had been cleaned in between uses, but who really knew if that was true or not.  I blame the basic laws of hygiene.

Now my parents had a beautiful pool, but they got it after I was on my own.  It was in the shape of a J for Janet, my mother.  The little curved part had jet streams to fix your ailing muscles, like I had any of that going on.  On hot weekends we’d pack up the dog and get on the train and head to Fairfield, Connecticut.  My parents loved when we invited others over for the weekend. This was either a demonstration of the truly cool cats they were or perhaps they just found us boring.  So I had a second chance at learning to swim with less of an audience, and it helped that most of the audience was tanked out on frozen margaritas and completely out of focus.  So I self taught myself how to float on my back and kick my legs and do something resembling a back stroke.  I mean I could get places but I wasn’t about to set any world records.  I could tread water which was great exercise but not really a fuel efficient mode of transportation.  I used it to disguise my deficiencies.  

Aside from the navy blue speedo deterrent, there was another incident that scarred me much earlier on.  

We were on a family vacation at some lake in upstate New York.  I was probably six years old and able to get myself out to a sand bar by paddling.  But then I panicked and my paddling turned into flailing uncontrollably.  I started screaming to my family on the beach that I was drowning.  HELP ME.  I’M DROWNING.  Well my mother just got hysterical but did absolutely nothing to help the situation.  In fact her state of hysteria merely elevated my levels of panic.  So my brother swam out to the sand bar, looked at me and said “stand up you eff’n idiot”.  But I couldn’t because I was drowning, until he picked me up and I realized the water was just past my ankles.  Yes he was right.  I was an eff’n idiot!

So now that it’s summer and everyone’s heading down to the Jersey shore, I really wish I knew how to swim so I could uptick my social life.  I’m considering taking swimming lessons at the YMCA, but this time I’ll dress myself thank you speedo heads.  But one thing I can’t hide is that I’m in my sixties.  I’m a little long in the tooth for learning just about anything other than soaking dentures.  I’m gonna give it a try.  Surely there has to be people my age that never learned because most everyone that lives here moved out of the city where there’s really no place to swim.  

Well I guess you could but it’s hard to make headway in the East River with a concrete block tied to your foot.