Can You Swim? Can You Remember How You Learned To Swim?

Discussion in 'Other Reminiscences' started by Ken Anderson, Sep 5, 2022.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Can you swim? Do you remember how you learned to swim?
     
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  2. Al Amoling

    Al Amoling Veteran Member
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    Yes I can swim.My mom used to take me and my brother to Revere Beach quite often and that's probably where I learned to dim.
     
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  3. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I learned to swim when i was probably about 6-7 years old. We lived at Sandpoint , Idaho, which sits right on the banks of beautiful Lake Pend Oreille. Farragut Naval Base is at the southern end of the lake, and it was where they tested submarines during the war, because the lake is so deep, and it was so far away from an ocean that it went undetected as a submarine base.

    Sandpoint has a fantastic beach, and it has developed even more over the years, as tourist attraction increases; but even back in the early 1950’s is was a great place to learn to swim.
    There was a little round cement kiddie pool, and I remember my mom taking me there before I was old enough to actually go in the lake itself, and when I was old enough for classes, she sent me to swimming lessons with the other Sandpoint kids.

    I have always loved water, and swimming at the fitness center is still something that I look forward to , although I don’t know that I would want to swim in a lake or river anymore. When Robin took me to Orlando, and we stopped at St. Augustine and went to the ocean, I had a lot of fun, but it was hard to keep my balance with the ocean dragging the sand out from under my feet.

    Sandpoint city beach, where I learned to swim.


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  4. John West

    John West Very Well-Known Member
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    Yes. I learned to swim by trial and error in a small, YMCA pool. Later became a certified, Red Cross Water Safety lifeguard.back in HS. One of the things we had to do to pass was stay in deep water for about 8 or more hours (I don't remember how long). That was easy. What wasn't was going in fully clothed trying to save a gorilla of an instructor frantically trying to drown you.
     
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  5. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I don't remember learning to swim but I do remember my dad teaching my younger brother to swim, and he was barely a toddler, so I imagine that's when I learned. To my memory, I have always known how to swim. Later on, in Boy Scouts, I learned the different types of strokes and such, but I could swim pretty well long before that.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 5, 2022
  6. Mary Robi

    Mary Robi Veteran Member
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    I can "swim", admittedly in the manner of a badly-injured walrus trying to get ashore. I can get where I'm going, just not quickly or with Esther Williams' grace.

    What I CAN do is float like a large piece of balsa wood. I have enough blubber on me to float til the Coast Guard gets there. Seriously. I'm buoyant like you wouldn't believe. Give me enough time and you'd swear the Queen Mary was inching into the dock.....
     
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  7. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I can swim underwater with a snorkle and propel myself very well, but I cannot swim on the top and breathe.

    I almost drowned when I was 13. I can't dog paddle. I took Red Cross swim lessons twice in my adult life. I failed miserably at both.
     
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  8. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    Swimming lessons in the municipal pool, probably 6 or 7 years old.
     
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  9. Hoot Crawford

    Hoot Crawford Veteran Member
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    I could get from one end of the pool at our high school to the other end. And that's about it.
     
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  10. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    I can swim and learned in our lake as a young child, I can't remember not swimming. Almost drowned in the lake twice. Once couldn't find my way from under the ice another time I was knocked out of the boat semi conscience.
     
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  11. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    I learned to swim as a child down the shore. We had a house on the Long Island Sound and another in Ocean City, NJ. So ocean swimming came first for me. Later, when we moved to a lake area, I was in one almost every warm day swimming my head off. Loved swimming above all other sports I participated in.
     
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  12. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Funny, one of the first things the Navy teaches a new Recruit at Basic Training is..........how to swim! NTC Great Lakes had a Olympic size pool for learning to swim and how to make dungaree work pants into floatation gear.

    IOW, before I turned 19 and enlisted in the Navy, I had never swam before. Really. Farmers have crops/livestock to take care of, not going to a local lake. However, on weekends that I'd spend with my cousins, their dad would take me out on local reservoir on his ski boat. I'd help launch/retrieve it, but never jumped into the reservoir and swam.
     
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  13. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    Yet, it still amazes me as to how many sailors still cannot swim.
     
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  14. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Well, Lois, we all had to take a swim test before graduating out of Basic Training aka Boot Camp. Even sailors that ended up being stationed on land had to learn, and pass, the swim test.
     
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  15. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I recall my dad tossing me into the lake to teach me how to swim. I was around 5 years old.
    The hardest part was getting out of the bag.
     
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