Let's Take a Swim

Before softball, before baseball, my daughter was a swimmer.  From the way she took to water, you would’ve thought the girl was working on a remake of “Splash”; move over, Daryl Hannah.  By the time Clare was eight, someone wanted us to have her join a swim club.  Too expensive, we thought, not knowing what lay ahead with softball.

The bat thing came from me, the fish thing from her mom.  Michele always loved swimming and so decided early on to have her daughter take lessons at the Y.  One class led to another, until we got that club invitation.  The slightest whiff of chlorine sends me into PTSD.

My own mother took me to the Y for swimming lessons because the doctor told her it would be good for my asthma.  By that, he must have meant it would be good for me to sit on the bottom of the pool looking up, for I had rock-like tendencies that no amount of classes could change.  Well, maybe they did, a little.  I do remember swimming out to a raft when we were on a family vacation in Wisconsin.  Talk about dogged, and lucky.

Now, if I were ever to go on a cruise (and that’s about as likely as me skydiving), you’d be able to point me out as the guy wearing the life jacket at breakfast, dinner and on the promenade.  In my case at least, fear of water really does lessen fear of flying.  Do I worry about snakes in a plane?  No, but a plane over the ocean would always be cause for concern.