We didn't learn to swim as very young children growing up in east San Diego County. Life was different back then. Houses didn't have air conditioning and they didn't have swimming pools. At least we didn't know anyone that had these things. Our hills were covered in sage not miles and miles of track houses. During my very early years America was at war with Germany and Japan. We had blackouts. My family had the only telephone on our part of the road and there were two dairies, one up the road and one down the road, that needed to shut down their lights during a blackout. There would be the phone call and my great uncle would go to one dairy and my dad to the other. The first time it happened my dad was so excited he ran into a barbed wire fence on the way to tell them to shut off their lights. I remember when the war was over. My parents were divorced by then and my first stepfather loaded us up into the car and we drove to San Diego honking the horn while other people on the roads did that too. We were so excited though I don't think we fully understood what it meant that the war was over.
By the time I was six years old my mother's marriage was on the rocks. She took us to Washington state. Bob flew up and talked my mother into trying again. We drove back to California in my grandfather's brand new Kaiser automobile. The next summer the marriage really was over and Mama took us back up to Washington. This time for the whole summer.
There are a lot of lakes in Washington state and summer programs to teach children to swim. So my cousins, my sister, and I were taken to the lake and put into swimming class. The first thing we had to learn was to face float. I saw my sister and cousins quickly go on to the next phase, backfloating. I couldn't seem to get out of face floating. Finally I managed to float to the count of ten...I really think the instructor was tired of me and wanted to send me on to the next class. Back floating was a disaster. By then my sister and cousins were dog paddling. I tried to do everything right but I would only sink up to my nose and breath in water. I decided that I was never going to learn to swim.
A few years later my Dad and Stepmother took us, most weekends, to Mission Bay to picnic and swim . My dad got big inner tubes from his work and so I had a great time floating around on those tubes. Mission Bay was also a different place back then. Lots of space and only a few people.
By the time I was twenty, my mom, by then married to my last stepfather put in a swimming pool. Years go by and my sister and I were both married with children and often on weekends we would visit Mama with our children. My sister smoked back then and she would tread water and smoke. I would hang on to the side of the pool.
I joined a backyard swim class for moms. I learned to dive into the deep end of the pool and to glide face down accross the pool. I even learned to swim a few strokes. I had gained some weight by then and it was easier to float. However when the instructor had us tread water, I began to sink. She looked at me and as I was going under she grabbed me and pulled me up. She said I was doing everything right too!
So I decided I had heavy bones and I just wasn't ever going to float like most people do. Give me a floaty and I'm a happy camper.
Yesterday I had a bone density test. The test is for osteoporosis. My bones are fine. I sort of knew they would be but it is nice to have that confirmed.
