Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Mage Made me Think of This

I learned to swim in a cold Adirondack lake at 8:30 every morning of my childhood summers. When you live in a village on a lake you make sure your kids know how to swim. My parents signed us up every summer for the early morning community lessons that produced everything from splashers to life guards to olympians and professional syncronized swimmers. An old photograph shows me and my sibs in soaked suits, guts pulled in from the brutal lakewater cold shivering under a shared towel. After the lessons we went home, warmed up, ate a meal and returned for the warmer afternoon to play on the beach and swim. It was a big deal when you were certified to go beyond the ropes to the dock. Sadly there was at least one drowning every summer. Lessons or not. A few years ago I jumped off a boat into a cold Idaho lake - and my life quickly passed before my eyes..I am definitely too old to be that cold. Now I love the gently heated old lady pool. May 8, 2012 4:44 PM

5 comments:

Dolores said...

This brought back memories of me taking our 2 children to 8 am swim lessons and watching their teeth chattering....sweet memories .

I'll take the heated pool, thank you...

Tabor said...

Brought back memories for me also, swimming in a cold mountain lake in late summer which was the only time one could bear it.

Mage said...

Oh, how I would like to see the pictures. What great summers. :)

Helen said...

I am embarrassed to admit I am not a swimmer - oh yes, I can make it from one side of a pool to the other ... that's about it! Warm is good. Tomorrow is Thursday ... you know what that means!

One Woman's Journey - a journal being written from Woodhaven - her cottage in the woods. said...

I never experienced what you did.
Never swam in a lake.
When my children were growing up we always had a pool - heated.
Now that was nice...