When I was eight or nine, my mother enrolled me in swimming classes at the YWCA (you read that right--W not M). I refused to go to the church-owned Deseret Gym, because males, young and old, were required to swim in the nude. The idea of a policy like this still haunts me, because I never wanted to see an apostle or prophet in the buff, let alone my friends up the street. So YWCA it was.
I knew I had problems from the start. I just didn't float well, but I managed to get back and forth across the narrow pool without hitting bottom. I was in the pollywogs class, and when it came time for the final test, to move up to the young frogs class, we had to float 15 seconds. I couldn't do it. I could not stay afloat for 15 seconds. I failed the Pollywog Class and went home in humiliation. That was the end of swimming for me.
We were discussing the float vs. no-float issue with Louise's dad one night, and he said, in his very Dutch way, "Everyone can float."
"No," I said, not everyone can float.
"Well," he said, "black people don't swim in the Olympics, because they can't float either. But they're the only ones."
My patience was running low, so I said, "You don't see ducks in the Olympics either."
So this painting was my dedication to my inability to float--still. Louise once took me to the pool in our apartment building and tried to test this out. "Now just lie back," she said, "and I'll hold you up. Then I'll let go very slowly, and you'll float.
Very slowly she took her hands away, and equally slowly, my feet went down, my head came up, and I sank.
This picture, which I call "The Sinker," (there's no "t" in there, Kathryn Withers, Sinker, not Stinker, is my tribute to all those souls who sink.
Oh, poor Tom! I can't decide where I started feeling the worst for you - Not wanting to swim with naked old men (yeck!) automatically put you with the ladies and the girls, which couldn't have been very cool as an 8 yr. old boy. Then the humiliation of not being able to float - how to do you get around that?
ReplyDeletePoor Tom!
The only good news I can report with full personal confidence, that if you gain an ungodly amount of weight, you too will float! In fact, you will be utterly unsinkable. Fat floats. Someone should have told me that before it was too late.
At that age, I wasn't upset about being put in the ladies' and girls' dressing rooms. They weren't around. It only struck me in later years that it was odd. But not nearly so odd as going to the Deseret Gym. YMCA.
DeletePS. I now understand why a such a homophobic church has no problem bouncing around, singing the YMCA song ( A Village People anthem to gay sex at YMCA's in the 60's and 70's) at every dance. Apparently we've had a long history of male bonding in YMCA swimming pools.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the women's change rooms creep you out too?
ReplyDeleteI was young. I didn't even notice that. It did occur to me that going to the YWCA was a bit odd, but I don't think there was a YMCA with a pool and instructors. Far stranger to me was the idea of swimming with the naked guys.
DeleteThe YWCA had both girls' and boys' dressing rooms just like YMCAs.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Deseret Gym, and always hoped I could get a look at a naked boy, but it was religiously segregated!
O dear the naked thing is just too odd! I once was going to do a junior lifeguard program that quite rightly had a swimming and treading water test before you were accepted. So I passed the water treading and then halfway through the laps I thought that being a junior lifeguard all of a sudden sounded horrible so I just stood up and walked out of the pool. My mother was so very very embarrassed but that summer when my friends had to swim around the pier and I was safe at home I was very proud!
ReplyDeleteYou should have been proud. You were smart enough to get out of a bad situation while you could. Brava, Baille.
DeleteOne of my brothers sinks.
ReplyDeleteHe has my sympathies.
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