Rumor in our family is that our mom started us all into swimming because of Gary. My oldest brother. From that point the rumor splits. Some say it was because Gary was clumsy and she felt the water would help him become more graceful, while others will swear it was to help him build confidence and strength.
In any event, I owe a huge gratitude to Gary. I was the youngest of five and the few memories I have of my mom truly are from our swimming events.
My mom was not traditional. In fact, until I wrote that sentence just now I never realized just how much of her personality I possess. Physically, Karen and I look like our father, short, light haired, and stout. Ginny, Judy and Gary resemble my mom. Ginny has my dad's height, but my mom's face. Judy and Gary come closest with height, stature and darker skin and hair tones.
My mom I'm told was the type of person that would put herself in poverty giving to others. I think all five of us have that trait. She didn't care what people thought of her looks, yet she was always dressed nice with fresh makeup on (ok maybe I don't have that trait). But she would be outside playing hula-hoop and ball for all to see. She loved spending time with us and made sure she was interested in our ideas and activities. We had our freedom, but she knew where we were at any given moment.
Mom was one of the first women's basketball players in high school. I'll have to double check with Judy, but I believe she also went to Lora's college in Dubuque. She obviously knew the benefits of participating in organized sports.
Swim lessons and practice in the summer would mean having the big doors to the Cudahy swimming pool wide open and the gentle wind blowing in. We would sit on the sides of the pool and be on vacation in far off lands while we waited for the next work out to be yelled out by the coach. Then dutifully we would take to the pool, one by one, like a line of soldiers marching along a straight line.
Can we stop for a second and talk about those swim suits? The girls swim speedos of the 60's were still tight fitting, but they had this little skirt attachment across the front of the pubic area. I think it was speedo's way of getting away with 'girls suits should have skirts'. In any event, they were annoying. I mean, they were asking to be played with, and when a young lady is playing with the skirt in that area of their body - they get yelled at. A lot. OK - back to the pool.
It was in the Cudahy High School pool area that I watched Neil Armstrong step foot on the face of the moon. They stopped the practice so that we could all sit on the tiles and watch on a television that they wheeled into the attached field house with a long extension cord. I remember trembling and watching my fingers turn blue while we waited for Neil to climb down those stairs. Hurry up, Neil - don't you know we are freezing?
It was also where I saw my first water ballet (Gary was the cowardly lion in the ballet version of 'The Wizard of Oz'), he leaped off the high dive to the song of 'to dream the impossible dream' from the Man of La Mancia. I still love that song. He swam almost the full length of the pool, just under the surface with his arm extended like a periscope. I was in awe.
That was the same diving board where I learned of my not so fear of heights - funny how I could jump off the high dive without hesitation, but had a hard time climbing high ladders.
It was also the pool where I earned my third set of stitches.
OK - a quick side note on the stitches. The first set was due to a company picnic, an empty glass bottle, and a wobbily picnic table. I had climbed on top with the bottle and was doing a sort of dance - yelling for attention, when one of the other people attending the picnic sat on the side. This catapulted me and the bottle into the air, landing in the grass - bottle met head, and the first trip to the emergency room was set.
The second set were courtesy of Gary. I was learning to ride a two-wheeler and he pushed the stringray sissy bar a little too hard. I went smack dab into the pavement and opened up my head. My mom had just started working at the local emergency room as an admitting clerk and I was her first patient!
The third set, as I said, was in the swimming pool. It was open swim and I was jumping off the side of the pool and spinning like a professional ice-skater. I had done this successfully two or three times. But the next time I spun a little too close to the edge and hit my jaw coming down. I didn't think anything of it so I kept swimming around. I mean my teeth had clattered, and I felt like I now had a gill under my chin, but they all seemed to be there.
It was about at that moment that the life guard called me over. 'Carole - come here'. I figured I was going to get yelled at for jumping in, but instead he pulled me out, wrapped a towel under my chin and guided me to the life guard room. That was when I saw the first red patch appearing on the towel. I heard him call my mom and ask her to come to the pool.
We lived pretty close so this should have taken her about 5 minutes. I swear before I could turn my head my mom was in the doorway. Her and Mrs. Courtney escorted me out of the pool area and to the now-all-too familiar emergency room. A short 5 stitches later and I was headed back home.
You see on my last spin, when I had hit my chin I had opened a nice hole in my lower neck.
Swim club was a nightly activity - year around. In the winter we would walk home from practice and laugh when our hair froze. Chlorine is wonderful for hair. It turns it a nice shade of lime green/yellow and the texture turns to straw if you don't rinse it well enough after a practice. Very becoming.
In the summer we had out door practice in Sheridan pool. It was only heated by the sun and the cold water made you swim faster, at least that's what the coaches told us. Funny how they never seemed to join us in the pool.
The best part of swim club were the meets. At the end of summer we would compete against other city swim clubs. You could win ribbons and medals. I'd like to say those didn't interest me, they did - but not as much as the trophies. Gary had proven to be a good gamble, he had many trophies adorning his dresser. You remember that scene from "The Brady Bunch" when Jan threw all of Marcia's trophies and ribbons into a box in the closet? Yeah, Gary's dresser looked like that.
Judy, Ginny and Karen all were ribbon winners as well. I swam for Cudahy swim club until we moved in sixth grade to Oak Creek. I have one ribbon - 7th place.
This was probably due to the fact that most of the time when it came time for my event I was pretty sick to my stomach. You see, swim meets also meant plenty of 'energy food'. What you would consider junk food now a days. Protein sticks like the kind they took to the moon, chips, popcorn and jello. Now our jello was not dissolved with water. Nope, we ate it straight from the box. You simply licked your finger, dipped it in, and licked off the wonderful granules of sweet colored sugar. Red or orange were the best.
Let me tell you after a good afternoon of jello and protein sticks you
want nothing more than to jump into a pool and swim as fast as you can back and forth. It's a wonder I even got that one 7th place ribbon.
At the end of the season we celebrated with a picnic in Sheridan park, complete with rolling down a cliff inside a truck inner tube into the cold waters of Lake Michigan.
We had practiced all summer long and now was a time to celebrate. There was hot dogs, burgers, laughter, vaseline covered watermelon polo, and - you guessed it - jello.
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