Dr. P-J
  • Blog
  • Non-Fiction
    • Memoirs >
      • Cruise Log - 2023 >
        • Cruise Log - Day 00
        • Cruise Log - Day 01
        • Cruise Log - Day 02
        • Cruise Log - Day 03
        • Cruise Log - Day 04
        • Cruise Log - Day 05
      • Swimming Through My Life
      • Pennies on the Railroad Tracks
      • A Chronology
      • Growing Up a Pineo
    • A Charmed Life - by my brother Noel
    • Other Non-Fiction >
      • The Time I Didn't Really Almost Die
      • GCO Report
  • Fiction
    • A Day Late and a Dollar Short - Part II
    • Madge Moves On
    • White Out
    • A Day Late and a Dollar Short - Part I
    • No Way Out
    • Star Crossed Lovers
    • Tick Vision
    • The Red Dress
  • Poetry
    • On Becoming a Ghost
    • Monique
    • I Am an Ocean
    • Ostara on I-95
    • Soul Garden
    • My Father Kept Secrets
    • Born Under the Sign of Seattle
    • Tick Vision
  • RECIPES
    • "Quiet Time" Oatmeal
    • Curried Sweet Potato Patties
    • Rice Pudding
  • Queer Theory
    • Neo-Feminism
    • Queer Theory
    • Culture is a Construct
    • Theoretical Underpinnings
    • Dismantling Patriarchy
  • Archives
    • Home
    • The Rest >
      • Bernie Sanders 2020 VA
      • Bernie Sanders 2016 >
        • Report from a Sanders Delegate
        • Bernie Sanders on the Issues >
          • How Bernie Pays for His Proposals
          • The Issues
        • Foreign Policy
        • Inequality
        • Not-Bernie
        • Anonymous Archives
        • Data Collection and Analysis
        • Favorite Videos
        • Memes about Bernie
        • Help Fund My Trip to Philly
        • Super Delegates
      • Advocacy
      • Random Rants
      • Music Videos >
        • It's My Party
        • Blue Pearl
        • Best Covers
    • Theory >
      • The Economic System is Constructed
    • Issues >
      • Progressive Revolution >
        • Definitions
        • Election News
        • Revolutionary >
          • Revolution
          • An Advanced Organizer for the REVOLUTION
          • Reliable Media Sources
          • Privacy
          • Stop "Googling" it
          • How to Create a Press Release
        • Democratic Party >
          • Current Events
          • Democratic Party - Good News
          • Democratic Party - Bad News
          • Matt Rowe
      • ADA >
        • DNC Research Project >
          • My Convention Narrative
          • ADA Research Project
          • Raw Data - Stories from the Convention
          • Brief Analysis of Data
        • DVPA disAbility Caucus
      • #NoDAPL
      • Anti-Democratic Practices
      • Purple Thumb Voting System
      • Monsanto
      • TPP
      • Income Inequality
      • Corruption of the Media
      • The Yoke of Corporatization
    • Search
  • About
    • Contact
    • Social Media
    • Publications
    • Op-Eds
  • Search

Dr. P-J's Blog

Swimming Through My Life - Union Bay

10/23/2022

4 Comments

 
Picture
I attempted to learn to swim in Union Bay in Seattle at free lessons offered every summer. My mother and my siblings would walk from our tiny cottage to Madison Park Beach, taking turns pushing the stroller. My favorite memory of this time was watching my mother sitting on the bench next to the water to watch us. When we arrived, she would take a ball of string out of her purse and measured the distance from the bench to the edge of the water. Then she would tie one end of the string to her wrist and the other to the wrist of the baby. I’m the eldest of six so there was always a baby in the family. I’m not sure which baby this was but it was probably Smith, the fourth child.

I was about six the first time I took the class. I took the class for at least three years and never learned to swim. The water was just too darn cold for skinny little me. You could enter the freezing cold bay water down concrete steps and I could easily stand in water about chest high. There was a wall at the edge, just like a swimming pool.

We started by learning the dead man’s float. You just held onto the edge and floated with your eyes closed. When my brother Ronn joined the class, he cried when they said we were going to learn the “dead man’s” anything at all. Later that day, when my father learned of Ronn’s distress, he suggested that we all call it the “Superman” float, and that actually worked.
So I could do the dead man’s float and hold the edge while I kicked. I could perform a meager dog paddle, but I had to stand up ever couple feet. Every year on the last day of class, we lined up by height in the water and were expected to swim the distance between two poles (that held the rope and buoys signaling the supervised swimming area).

I paddled with all my might for about five feet and then touched ground and watched the rest of the class swim down to the finish line, earning a cool patch you could sew onto your jacket or something. I never got the patch. On the last day that I would ever take the free swimming lessons, my friend Nancy Armstrong came with us. She joined in the test and won the patch. There is a picture of us that day, somewhere in the family effects, showing big strong Nancy with weak shivering Shelley, clutching a towel around her skinny frame.​

​Dr. P-J
​10/23/22

Link to Non-Fiction -- Memoirs -- Swimming Through My Life
4 Comments
Michael Jensen
10/23/2022 04:40:26 pm

Such a wonderful story from a wonderful time!

Write more please!

Reply
Dr. P-J link
10/23/2022 04:43:26 pm

Thank you for your kind words. I will try to write the next segment tomorrow.
ylw
~ Dr. P-J

Reply
Jean
10/23/2022 08:22:40 pm

I think you learned how later! I remember senior ditch day, where Hurwitz and I watched you way out in the big waves at Laguna.

Reply
Dr. P-J link
10/24/2022 07:37:57 am

I did eventually learn to swim. I think in high school I had mastered the dog paddle. I had forgotten all about senior ditch day. How lucky I was to spend time with you and Hurwitz, at Laguna Beach or anywhere. I'll bet you were there when he talked his way into a bar to see Joy of Cooking without ID and underage . . . what a charming person.




Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.