My aunt and uncle had a summer house at the Jersey shore on an inlet we called “The Lagoon” (which wasn’t really a lagoon. And had no Creatures in it). They had a dock and lots of big truck tiore inner tubes to float on. They also had a collection of the old-style bright orange Kapok-filled life vests (because that’s just about all there was, back then)
I was really young – 5? 7? Whatever. I put on my life vest and was paddling around the Lagoon near the inner tubes, trying to stay away from the barnacle-encrusted pilings. Two adults come over to the edge and look down at me.
“Should he be out there all alone like that?”
“Sure. He’s got a life vest on.” With which the speaker grabbed a similar life vest from the dock and threw it in next to me…
…where it sank like a rock.
Needless to say, they hauled me out in a hurry. I had been swimming around wearing a weight. I don’t know if the stuff got old or what, but it was no longer buoyant.
Yes, had swim lessons way back in grade school at the college pool in town. Don’t really swim a lot anymore, water in the PacNW is a wee bit cold at the best of times. Don’t go to public pools, no friends with pools. Got really spoiled about 25 years ago in Tonga snorkeling/catching fish for the aquarium trade, and more recently, in March, snorkeling in the gorgeous waters of Belize. That’s swimmable water!
Taught myself to swim at a young age and never had a problem since. For several years we went to a public pool quite close to us several times a week.
Then COVID hit, we moved, etc. No easily accessible public pool near us.
It the past, if I hadn’t swum in a while, it took 2-3 sessions to get back into reasonable shape to swim effectively enough for workout purposes (mainly duration). Now, I think it could take at least twice that.
You’re right. I tend to express myself a little too emphatically after a couple of glasses of wine. What I should have said is that I think it’s extremely important for people to learn how to swim.
My mother was a poor swimmer and had some fear of being unable to save us if we went under so we all had to take swimming lessons through Advanced. One of my sisters swam competitively in high school. We belonged to a (really funky old rundown) country club for a few years and I for one spent many summer afternoons in the pool. Used to swim laps at the Y but haven’t for years. My town has a Town Pool which is just a glorified dammed creek, and I swim there every chance I get. But I get tired easily these days. I used to be able to just swim and swim.
The driver was an elderly woman visiting a friend. One of those “foot on gas instead of brake” incidents. She was shaken up a little (more mentally than physically) but okay.
The pool was out of commission for almost two months. Annoyingly, part of the delay was due to the complex manager having to put the fence repair and pool clean-up work out for bids from multiple contractors.
That, plus the fact the manager really hates having to deal with pool issues. Years ago she procrastinated on cleaning up a huge bunch of leaves that had sunk to the bottom. By the time she did anything about it, the bottom of the pool was permanently stained.
Yes. I learned when I was four, apparently. I don’t remember a time before I could swim.
I made sure my kids learned to swim fairly early and fairly well, and my grandson was mobile in the water at the age of two. He truly loves swimming now, at the age of seven.
I seem to recall it was a requirement to graduate high school when I was in high school (Michigan, early 90s). So, yes, I can swim. I took lessons when I was maybe 8.
Not really. It folded a few years later. The pool was nice, and there was a snack bar, as I remember, but the other amenities were few. They had some tennis courts, and a little stable of broken-down horses available for riding, and a few boarding stalls (I kept my own decrepit horse there) and a big riding arena we horsy kids played games in. No supervision, no lessons, only a mostly-monoglot old mexican guy we called Man-you-ell, who shod the horses. It was more run down than I was aware of as a kid. But because of the horses I loved it. And then, we swam.
Learned at the YMCA in my pre-teen years and was, like a couple of other posters, at the local pool much of the summer in my teen years. Then pretty much stopped and except for a few months in my 40’s, did not swim again until a couple years ago (when I was 70), when I joined a local gym with a 25-yard pool. Unfortunately most of the strokes were but dim memories, so I’ve been restricted to backstrokes (which allow me to continue to wear my glasses. Am up to about 1-1.5 miles a session, but usually break it into 2-3 sections, with whirlpool time in-between. Probably could re-learn the other strokes but right now flailing backwards into the unknown is my go-to.
Can you explain why it is necessary to jump into the pool? Why isn’t swimming sufficient. I can swim quite readily but have never jumped into a pool. That is a result of my morbid acrophobia.
I learned to swim in the easiest way imaginable. We were staying in Atlantic City the year I was 6, but near the back bay. It is salt water, meaning you float easily, but there are no waves (although there are tides) and my father took me there and taught me to swim. I still prefer salt water. But I also enjoy pools. When I was a teen, we used to play pool tag and the easy way to tag someone was to sneak up by swimming deep underwater, which I loved to do.
More recently, my experience has been in Barbados, only the west coast. The east (Atlantic) coast is very rough and dangerous, but the east coast, while it has waves, is very calm. I would swim at least a mile ever day in a roped-in area in front of a hotel.
Yes, probably. For about 20 years i swam a mile at 5 in the morning in a pool. It has been ten years. I need to get that motivation back… Swimming, like XC skiing or skating, - more so than riding or running - hugely rewards good technique. I mostly swam to build arm strength for skate skiing.
