Swimming at age Six
At the ages of two and three, I had two very near drowning experiences that have kept me leery of swimming thirty years on.

My parents, in order to cure me of the terror, bought me a life jacket and held me screaming in our tiny backyard pool to get me over the phobia. It didn't really work.

Then came school. First, the terror of punishment by caning. Second, the terror of weekly swimming lessons in the world's coldest pool led by Mizz Aurik, a defected East German Olympic coach (I swear).

The sound of the sprinklers ticking an ominous countdown as we made our way across the fields.

The changing rooms made of those open bricks showing your tiny genitals to the world at large, a chill breeze blowing over a pool that only got sun half the day.

The Teutonic shriek: "get eeeen ze vater!"

The testicles retreating into the abdomen as your body hit the water.

The chlorine stinging your teary eyes as der Damenführer put her foot on your head to force you to breathe out underwater through your streaming nose while you practised kicking against the walls.

I was sick nearly every Thursday, as my mother just couldn't take the howling.

We had her for the first four years of school, and I was a near-permanent wreck. In my final year of junior school, I developed a fondness for simply floating on my back and kicking, as I'd plunge underwater if I swung my arms. I entered the school gala for the "backstroke" with the worst swimmers and naturally lost miserably, but the old battleaxe, bless her iron heart, came up and shook my hand, telling me how proud she was of me. Very touching.

I'm so fucking glad I'm not a child any more.
(Ladyfingers is in your wardrobe,, Fri 20 Nov 2009, 12:59, Reply)