Learning to Swim, Not Really!!

For as long as I can remember, I have been afraid of deep water, that is putting my face under water. Sometime, likely under 10 years old, we were at a stream, and I tried to put my face in the water, and was scared to death. My Dad taught at the Altoona School of the Bible for 10 years or so, and it was held in the YMCA. Of course there was a swimming pool in the building, and once in a while we could go swimming, but I was scared to death of getting my face under water.

When I joined the Merchant Marine, they asked if I could swim. I had discovered that if I said no, I would have to go to class, if I sort of ignored the question, I was let alone. Elsewhere I told the story of hanging onto a rope out over the ocean, when there was a lifeboat drill, and as I said then, “Who cares if I can’t swim, 5,000 miles out in the ocean.”

When I was in the Army, they insisted that I must swim. When I would not put my face in the water, I was almost in big trouble. I solved that easily, after the first session I learned to go on sick call each time they even talked about swimming, so got away with it.

When we moved to California, and bought our house in Encino, we became good friends with the neighbor Gray Miller family. They installed a one-piece fiberglass swimming pool that was 9’ by 25’ and about 5’ deep at the deepest. We went to their home many times, but I only waded, never put my face in the water. Gray would often threaten to through me in, but I warned him not to do that, and Sweetie told him also to leave me alone.

One day Gray saw something at the bottom of the pool that he wanted to look at and clean up, so he put on a face mask and went to the bottom of the pool, and picked up the small item. He mentioned how clear it was in the pool, when he was wearing the mask.

The mask was near the pool, so I reached it, held it over my eyes and nose, and stuck my face in the water a whole 2 inches deep. It was amazing, it really was clear, and even though my whole face was not below the water, I felt safe. With out saying a word to anyone, I put the mask on, with the strap, and looked deeper in the water. It was so nice I just floated deeper, and even touched the bottom.

At this point, someone, maybe Sweetie screamed, Gray saw me, and immediately jumped in the save me, as they all thought I had fallen in, and was drowning. What a difference, for the first time in my life I had my head underwater, and it was fun.

But the truth be told, even after we built a pool at our home in Woodland Hills, I could go into the water, and float here and there, and wag my arms and kick my feet, I never learned to swim, and never could go in the pool without the mask.

Sweetie had never been happy in the water either, so she soon learned to use the mask like I did. Before we built the pool, I can remember Sweetie in the bathtub, with the mask on, practicing putting her face under water.

Over the years, several other people, from kids to grownups, thanked us for telling and demonstrating the mask, so now they could get in the water also.

And the bottom line is, that when Dan and Linda bought their first house in Sherman Oaks in 1986, that exact same pool was installed in their back yard.