I was five years old when my mother decided that it was high time I learned how to swim. We lived in Fort Wayne, IN then so we got in the Chevy and drove downtown to the YMCA.
Now, most things seem big and imposing to little kids I suppose but I was not prepared for this. My mom, holding my hand, walked in the front door and up to the counter. The lobby was noisy and cavernous and it smelled of bleach. My mother talked with a lady behind the counter for a short while and then leaned down to me. She handed me my little plaid gym bag and told me to go into the locker room, change into my suit and the proceed to the pool for my lesson. I can’t recall but I probably said “What?” And made her repeat it a couple of times. She just turned my shoulders and pointed me towards a large, black door. “In there” she said.
As I walked forward a fearful feeling began to grow inside of me. That feeling was fully mature when I pushed open the door and entered the huge room. The sound of slamming metal and men’s laughing voices bounced off the walls. It was a damp, scary place. I saw row upon row of narrow little doors behind long, wooden benches. “That must be where I put on my suit” I thought. Just then a large, hairy man with a white towel wrapped around his waist walked past. I could be wrong but I don’t think he was wearing any underwear. Soon, a couple of more men came and sat down on the benches. So I sat down too with my little bag and waited until everyone left. Surely my mother did not want me to get undressed in front of all these people!
When I was alone, I stood and opened one of the little metal doors. It was empty inside except for a hook way at the top. “Not very big” I thought as I stepped inside with suit in hand and closed the door. It was cramped inside the little locker but I managed to unbutton and remove my shirt. My trousers though we’re a different story. I got them down to my knees but then became stuck. Try as I might, I could get no further and decided I would need to exit the locker. Now, it’s been said many times that you learn something new everyday. That day I learned that the lockers at the Fort Wayne YMCA only open from the outside. I panicked. I began to yell and bang on the door. Suddenly, the man in the white towel opened the door. He looked at me, with my pants down to my knees and said “What the hell ya doin there kid?” Needless to say, I didn’t learn how to swim that day.
A year or so passed and my family moved to a little town nearby that was surrounded by lakes. When summer came my mother said to me “Let’s try this again.” She took me to a big lake in the center of town and we went inside a large pavilion. Soon, I was with around ten kids my age walking in a line towards a long, concrete pier. As we walked I noticed the instructor held a long, wooden pole in his right hand. We continued on, all the way to the end of the pier and I looked down at the dark, green water. The instructor looked us over and then he pointed at me and said “You, come here.” I walked slowly over beside him at the edge of the pier. I will never forget what happened next. My swimming instructor, the person who was there to finally teach me how to swim, put his hand on my back and pushed me into the lake.
I remember the water and how dark and cold it was. I probably only went down five feet or so but it felt like fifty as I instinctively clawed my way towards the sunlight. When I finally broke the surface, the first thing I saw was that long, wooden pole and the smiling instructor on the other end of it. I began to dog paddle towards the pole but whenever I reached out to grab it , he moved it a little further away.
Needless to say, I learned how to swim that day.
PSW