Dr. P-J
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Dr. P-J's Blog

Swimming Through My Life - Cal State Fullerton

1/22/2023

2 Comments

 
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My memoirs continue to grow. In this next episode of "Swimming Through My Life" I finally learn to swim.
Check it out under Non-Fiction: Memoirs: Swimming Through My Life or go right to the spot with this:
LINK
Let me know what you think; please leave a comment.
2 Comments

Pennies on the Railroad Tracks

1/18/2023

2 Comments

 
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I've been writing again. It's a non-fiction memoir that tells a story of a time in Orange, California in the late 1960s. My dear friend Jean sent a photo from those happy times, and it sparked my memory of an incident that happened at The Crocodile . . . 
Here's a link.
2 Comments

Swimming Through My Life: Laguna Beach

1/4/2023

10 Comments

 
Swimming Through My Life: Laguna Beach
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Today I sit in a cold Baltimore basement. Don't get me wrong; I love my life; I love my basement and first floor apartment in a "Painted Lady" on a street of row houses built in 1876. I love living close to my wonderful children and that grandbaby of mine - River Jacques J'Vera. I love living close to my brother and his wonderful and their charming son . . . but . . .
I long for the West Coast. I pine for the fragrant trees. I miss the Pacific Ocean - well the coast of the USA that borders on that ocean. The Atlantic is a mud puddle to me. Just dirty bath water . . . and so many bugs . . . but that's another story. Today, I present to you a story of my younger days, learning to swim as I swam through my life.
It's in non-fiction under "Memoirs" or
Here's a LINK.
10 Comments

A Charmed Life - by my brother Noel

12/16/2022

2 Comments

 
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My brother Noel has written an article about the "unique folks manage to stay above reproach, in a place where no one is supposedly above the law."
​It resonates with me. I hope you will enjoy it.
Look under the non-fiction pull-down.
2 Comments

New Poem

12/7/2022

5 Comments

 
On Becoming a Ghost

Merry Christmas
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5 Comments

Swimming Through My Life: Meg's House

12/1/2022

3 Comments

 
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New writing! Swimming Through My Life:
LINK to Meg's House
3 Comments

Introducing Neo-Feminism

11/28/2022

0 Comments

 
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Is All Masculinity Toxic? Introducing Neo-Feminism
by Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.

My previous post regarding the article "All Masculinity is Toxic" drew some helpful critiques by friends and relatives. I have restructured the piece and added more explanation of the point of the piece - which turns out to be the idea of Neo-Feminism.

Neo-Feminism is not a linear extension of the waves of feminist action directed at bringing women equality; it is post-feminist in the sense that it advances a human identity that is queer, free from constricting gender roles, and advances the goal of equity and freedom for all human beings, regardless of their plumbing. Gender is a construct that values half the population at the expense of the other half; like all the binaries (white/non-white, straight/queer, Christian/non-Christian, able-bodied/disabled, old/young, male/female, et al) it distributes power in a supposedly "natural" way, whether by "god's" ordained reality or some self-serving explanation of evolution.

I am proud of this work. I hope you will read it and leave a comment below.

LINK to "Neo-feminism" under the Queer Theory pull-down
0 Comments

Is All Masculinity Toxic? (UPDATED)

11/22/2022

0 Comments

 
All masculinity is toxic? That seems like a bold claim. How can this be true? Hold onto your hats and follow the logic chain . . .
Check out my new article under the Queer Theory pull down
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Dr. P-J
0 Comments

The Orange Plunge

10/25/2022

7 Comments

 
After moving to Wenatchee, there were few opportunities for swimming. We drove down to see the town pool when we first moved there and discovered that it had been closed because it took its water straight out of the Columbia River, and it was no longer sanitary. The lake water at our various camping places was always very cold. Perhaps we were invited to swim once at the home of one of my father’s colleagues, but the memory is unclear. Mostly I remember that that the fatuous wife and mother (of a fat boring baby) promised us “Boston Coolers” all day while we sat around bored – there must not have been a swimming pool, right? – and finally she prepared the highly touted treat, and it was just an ordinary root beer float. Not that there is anything wrong with a root beer float but after her build up to this strange and exotic dessert, I expected something more spectacular. What did I want? Sparkers and ruby dust? But anyhow, swimming was a bust in Wenatchee.

​We moved to Orange, California in 1964, the summer before eighth grade. At that time, Orange was not part of the great wasteland that is present day Orange County; it was in individual city (town?) that was bordered by orange groves and undeveloped chaparral with no other municipalities but for Santa Ana to the south. We had one car which my father used to drive to work at Santa Ana Junior College, later Santiago Community College. I walked everywhere. I rarely took my/our bicycle out of the neighborhood. I think that the one speed bike that was the delight of my Wenatchee days was just too slow and clunky; or perhaps it was that there was a possibility that it would be stolen. Walking was something I did with friends, and I had many. Many children living near me was one of the advantages of Primrose Drive from 1964 to 1970.
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I went with my family to the Orange Plunge frequently when I lived with my parents in Orange. The Plunge was the centerpiece of W.O. Hart Park, which everyone pronounced Wo (woah) Hart. In the beginning, my mother would be there. My father would drive us over and swim for about ten minutes and then disappear, probably to a nearby bar, but it was never discussed. My mother would swim with us for a while, coaching us on our swimming a bit and showing us tricks like swimming underwater and turning somersaults underwater. Then she would lay on a towel or take the baby, which at this point was Emily, outside to a free wading pool. The Primrose house had no air-conditioning, so swimming was quite a relief on those hot summer days.

Later, Jayne and I, and perhaps other siblings, would walk all the way to the plunge and spend a hard-earned quarter for entrance to paradise. I was not a good swimmer still, and for the first couple years I swam about exclusively in the shallow end. I would sometimes work my way up the side of the pool, swimming a ways and then grabbing the edge. The lifeguards didn’t like it and I would be busted. They wanted to see me swim all the way across the pool without touching down. Eventually, I could perform this feat, slowly dog-paddling the width of the Olympic sized pool. Suddenly, I was permitted to swim in “the deep end.” What a lovely sound that was – it was a major accomplishment in my swimming progress. 
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I was, by this time, going to the pool with my friends plus my sister Jayne. We shared friends, or as she like to put it, I “stole” her friends. Perhaps this is true. The only child my age in the neighborhood was a boy and if there were any slightly older girls, I do not remember them at all. Each time we went to the plunge, we would dare one another to go off the high dive; once I had tried it, I always did one jump and rarely, a dive, on every occasion that I visited the pool. Once a day was plenty; it usually hurt some part of my body, whichever stray part was sticking out or hit the water first. Also problematic was the long swim over to the ladder. But it was a symbol of courage and daring do. Just as it scared me, it always made me proud, because it frightened me and I still did it.
​
I much preferred the regular diving boards but again I was constantly in trouble with the lifeguards. One time I was swimming too near where the divers entered the water. I learned a rule that one could not swim around on the side of the ladder closer to the diving boards. But my big crime was diving towards the edge of the pool, swimming straight at it, and then grabbing the edge of the pool and working my way down to the ladder. I had to prove that I could swim the width of the pool again and again. I finally learned how to just dive straight off the board and swim out as far as the ladder and then cut over.
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I also learned how dive making a neat hole in the water, splitting it with my hands, and descending deep into the blue, finally swimming up when I was running out of breath. Then I would invoke my shabby dog paddle and make my way to the ladder. But the power of diving deep, of descending into the opaque abyss, was tantalizing and refreshing. Popping out onto the surface into the air was leaving a strange world of unreality and quiet into a cacophonous party, jagged sounds interrupted by splashing water and shrieks. The other girls like to lay on their towels and “sun-bathe” but I spent nearly every minute in the cool oasis, swimming underwater with my eyes open like a bigger girl, suffering the chlorine sting for the silence and the solitude.

​Dr. P-J
​10/25/22

Link to Non-Fiction -- Memoirs -- Swimming Through My Life

7 Comments

Swimming Through My Life - Seward Park

10/24/2022

4 Comments

 
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Near the end of my time in Seattle (my father took a master’s degree from University of Washington when I was nine and he got a job teaching in Wenatchee) we went on an outing with my Grandma Chandler, my mother’s mother.

I’ve looked at maps trying to figure out where the beach was – my guess is Seward Park. Between my mother and my grandma, there was sure to have been a fabulous lunch, perhaps fried chicken and potato salad. Maybe watermelon and cookies or cake. Or donuts. Grandma did like to buy us donuts. (“Say Pat, do you think we should stop and get some D-O-N-U-T-S?” And I would yell “YES!”)

So I found a picture of Seward Park taken in the 50s and it seems quite possible. The main thing about my life-long swimming adventure is that on this occasion, the water was NOT freezing cold. It was warm and lovely, due to the shallow nature of the geography of the shoreline. You had to walk out a long ways to get to waist deep. Jayne and I stayed near the shore and pretended to swim while actually just walking around on our hands. This led to my actually dog paddling around and figuring out that I could dog paddle quite a long distance.

This is a red-letter day in my life story because that was the day I learned to swim. I was still not confident in the water and would never swim where I could not stand up and be head above water. It was so validating to have accomplished something I had worked so hard on for so many miserable days in that cold cold water of Union Bay. I learned today it’s really called Lake Union, but whatever. That’s how I remember it.

And I can still remember how unpleasant it was to try to swim in that cold water. I tried so hard and I hated it so much. Then one day, I swam in shallow warm water and boom – I could do it. I could swim.

It makes me feel good to think about that, even today at age 71. And it does my heart good to remember Grandma Chandler. She was a sweet and gentle soul, the kind of Christian anyone could aspire to be, and merry too with a humorous wit and a kind and diplomatic nature. I feel her warmth as I feel the warmth of some beach in Seattle when I was nine years old.

​Dr. P-J
​10/24/22

Link to Non-Fiction -- Memoirs -- Swimming Through My Life
4 Comments
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Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.