Learning to Swim

The outdoor pool tank is ten feet deep. There is no shallow end. Families take refuge from the summer heat in its cool waters, pumped underground from Lake Michigan. A hundred people of all ages, legs churning, tread water. 

Some swim with their heads above the surface while others frog-kick their way several feet beneath it. Splashing sounds fill the air as bodies cut through the churned up water. They dive or jump off the board, creating waves that slosh against the sides of the tank. 

Mr. Pershon, a muscular bulk of a man, sits perched in his lifeguard’s chair scanning the tank with his sharp scrutinizing eyes. His whistle at the ready for even the most minor of infractions, he bellows to this one and that one keeping everyone in line.

I am eight years old, a non-swimmer, and have been invited to the Country Club pool by Henry and Togni, my new next door neighbors. They thrash about in their play while I carefully hang on to the wall by keeping a firm grip on the filter channel that forms a sort of gutter along the entire perimeter of the tank. I am not afraid to let go and peer with open eyes beneath the surface to try and catch a glimpse of the action. I can hold my breath really well.

Chlorine has not been added to the water from Lake Michigan that fills the tank. A few years from now, an ecological imbalance in the Hudson Bay area leads to the migration of freshwater eels into the Great Lakes region. The eels will decimate large numbers of salmon who normally feed on a fish we call alewives, also known as sardines. Having no other natural predator, the alewives flourish into the tens of thousands. The Great Lakes, unable to produce enough of a food supply to support the burgeoning population of alewives, become their Grim Reaper. The dead silver bodies will glimmer on the surface of the lake reflecting the sun. They will wash ashore to a sandy graveyard where they will rot and fill the air with a ghastly odor.

In order to try and control the odor, each neighborhood will organize clean up details. On our appointed day we will go to the beach with shovels and dig deep trenches to bury the fish. The smell will be nauseating as, wave upon wave, the dead fish will keep coming. When the fish are pumped into the Country Club pool, Mr. Pershon and other club employees will scoop them out. But during that future summer, none of us will feel much like swimming anywhere.

It is still this summer, however, and as I peer into the clear water, I can see kids diving for pennies and others hoisting themselves out of the pool. As I watch this underwater world, I let the air I have sucked into my lungs slowly bubble out through my nose and mouth. As I do so, I slip a little bit further under the surface and listen to the muffled sounds. There is a pleasant lull to the soft tones like holding down the left pedal on a piano. It takes the edge off the sharpness of each note. I smile quietly to myself as the last of the air leaves my lungs. I reach for the gutter on the side of the pool—my exit from this world that is so much like the womb, my entrance to the world above. But, I can feel only the flatness of the tank wall. Its rough concrete nubs are like gritty sandpaper on the palms of my hands as I pat the side searching for the gutter I need to earn a purchase to the surface. Panic begins to set in and only the imagined sound of my own voice screams, Where is the pool edge? Pat, pat, pat. All I can feel is wall as I fight the desire to take a breath. 

I am somehow out of the water before I can quite comprehend what has happened between the second I thought I was about to drown and the second Mr. Pershon starts yelling, “Get yourself over to the baby pool until you learn how to swim!” 

It would seem he has plunged his great paw of a hand into the water next to my struggling body, dug his fingers into my armpit, and pulled my eight-year-old, fifty-pound self out of the water before promptly depositing me on the white concrete deck. If the truth be known, I’m sure I scared him to death. His adrenalin pumping, he was no doubt prepared to perform mouth-to-mouth and call the emergency personnel until he heard me inhale a great gasp of air. Anger replaced his fear. 

Humiliated, I sit down on the edge of the baby pool where moms in pointy-cupped one-piece bathing suits wearing Jackie Kennedy sunglasses, dangle their feet in the pee-infested waters of their two- and three-year-olds as they chat inanely of bridge parties and meatloaf recipes.

Togni and Henry come over to where I am sitting and ask what I am doing but I am too embarrassed to tell them the truth. “I’m not feeling well,” I lie. I tell them I’ll see them back at home. I then find my towel and, eyes on my feet, kick a rock the mile walk home.

The lonely walk home gives me a chance to think about what has just happened. I’ve talked to other people over the years who, due to near-drowning experiences, are now afraid of the water. 

I am not afraid. I am angry at not being able to swim and want more than anything to prove to Mr. Pershon that I am not a baby. I decide I must campaign my mother for swimming lessons. This won’t be easy as I remember what happened between us a year earlier. Mesmerized by my grandmother’s ability to play the piano, I begged my mom to let me take lessons. She and her own girlhood piano lessons had been a waste of money. I must have driven her crazy with my relentless appeals because she finally gave in. Upon her acquiescence, however, she sternly and angrily warned, “You will practice a minimum of 30 minutes a day. No excuses, no crying, and not a word of complaining.” At its moment of issuance, I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever want to complain or cry about practicing piano. I soon found out but didn’t dare tell her. 

As I ruminate on how I will approach getting swimming lessons, I figure what had worked for piano will have to do—I’ll nag her until she relents.

Resolved but wary, I walk in the door of our home dragging my towel behind me like a scolded animal drags its tail. Mom takes one look at me and knows there is a problem. “What happened?” she asks sympathetically as she places a dish of applesauce on my sister’s high chair tray. Without preamble, I moan in earnest, “You’ve just got to let me take swimming lessons.” She adds a sippy cup of milk to Susan’s tray before answering, “I suppose the YMCA must offer lessons.” 

It was always that way with Mom. She’d fight you on one thing and then let you do another seemingly similar thing without blinking an eye. I never ever figured out which way she’d go. It probably had something to do with her emotional attachment or detachment to the subject matter. She hated her own piano lessons and therefore thought I would too. She loved swimming in the pond when she was a girl, therefore I would too. It was probably that simple, but a child can’t philosophize like that. 

I began as a Tadpole at the YMCA and quickly advanced to Sharks. I never got a chance to show Mr. Pershon my accomplishments. By the time I made it back to the Country Club pool, he had retired.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021