I learned at the YMCA in Paterson, New Jersey in 1940. Lou Costello the comedian was from Paterson and visited the Y frequently.
Around 3-4, at the beach. My Mom would take me out to the deep water, and I'd yell that she needed to let me go. Later, at 5, we had a pool. I swam in it. It all paid off: I lettered in swimming, in high school. In college, I challenged my Life Saving instructor to two lengths of the pool, when he criticized my side stroke. I beat his butt, in front of the whole class.
My dad threw my little brother in the river when he was about two, so I imagine that's how I learned to swim, too. We had a river (Little River) behind the house, and there were just too many rivers and lakes in the area for someone not to know how to swim.
I never learned how to swim. I tried to remediate this as an adult by taking Red Cross lessons (twice), but could never get the hang of it. One instructor literally gave up. I can swim from one end of the pool underwater, and I can dive to the bottom of the pool and resurface as long as I have a snorkel, but I could never get the hang of breathing-while-swimming without sucking in water. And I never learned to tread water.
I learned to swim as a eight or ten year old but never swam well and was never comfortable in water. Since I’ve had a lung disease I have shunned water.
As a Boy Scout, I swam two miles. The staff had marked off a one-mile stretch and I swam there and back. My cousin and I used to swim across the Menominee River, which was fairly wide and had a current that would bring us a couple of miles downstream before we got across. I swam it several times but it was always a little scary. By the time I would feel that I'd like to go back, it was as far going back as it would be to continue forward. My other cousins never swam across that river.
Swimming lessons at local YMCA was very traumatic for me. The instructor held me under water as I fought to come up. I cried until my Mom came and picked us up. I never took another swimming lesson. If I learned anything before that happened to me it would have to be a do it or die situation to recall it.
Like Ken. I don't remember how I learned. The farm had two ponds that we swam in so I imagine I learned in those. I am Water Survival Qualified. or at least was. Marine Corps method of teaching someone to swim. Thought I was gonna die but the came out the other side!
U.S. Navy Basic Training, Great Lakes, ILL. in June 1968. Learning to swim is one of the first things the Navy teaches in an Olympic size pool. Had to take off our dungaree (work) pants, tie a knot in each leg and use as a floatation device. Before then, don't remember doing any swimming. Farm work, yes, but no swimming.
My mom was terrified of water so she had us take swim lessons thru YMCA at a motel spot. She did not want us to be scared like she was.
I never did learn to swim well. Or even not so well. Took a free class offered by some group (Red Cross?) at a lake in town at age 15 or 16. I passed, but I cheated.