Swimming lessons, the reveal
No, that's not his grave. We didn't kill him. Instead, we went to Boston.
Pam was a travel agent, and she was always getting free trips from airlines and hotels, who hoped she would see how wonderful they were and eagerly sell their services. Sometimes she could take someone with her, for free. So practically on the spur of the moment, we decided to skip our swimming lesson the next Saturday and, instead, go to Boston.
We packed a change of underwear and some good walking shoes and headed to the airport. We were staying at the Ritz, across from Boston Common. Right around the time when we should have been jellyfish-floating across the Duluth YMCA pool, we were heading on foot down the Freedom Trail.
We looked at the swan boats. We shopped at Faneuil Hall. We ate Italian food in the North End. We went to the Old Granary Burying Ground. We became instant Boston experts.
Our last day, we both woke up sick. I was feeling lousy, but Pam was so ill she couldn't get out of bed. So I picked up the phone and called room service, and after not too long a time a tuxedoed waiter appeared at our door with a rolling cart. He lifted up the silver lid to reveal our meal: soda crackers, Seven-Up, and hot tea.
As it turned out, I was sick because I was starting to get a migraine, which I used to get fairly often. But Pam, as she finally confessed on her second or third trip back from the bathroom, was sick because she was newly pregnant. We spent the morning lying in our beds, side by side, talking, punctuated by sudden dashes to the bathroom so that Pam could throw up.
In early afternoon, we pulled ourselves together, staggered down to the lobby, hailed a cab, and flew home.
And that was it for our swimming lessons. After skipping one, it was easy to just skip all the rest.
And so we did. And so I never learned how to swim.
20 comments:
Boston! One of my favorite cities. Glad you had a good time, until the last morning. Sorry you never learned to swim, maybe if you'd had a better instructor it all would have worked out differently.
I am sorry you never learned to swim but glad that you had a great trip to Boston.
Terrific story well told, Laurie.
I wonder if that punk of an instructor had to show up every week and sit there waiting for the two of you, in the off-chance that you showed up again.
Boston sounds like much more fun than the swimming lessons, even factoring in the "sick" morning.
Well since you don't live with water dogs, no big deal to not be able to swim. Hopefully you can climb a tree as well as Riley?
Hop on a plane with a change of underwear? Could you publish your packing light tips for the rest of us Laurie?
I'd take the trip over floating too. Sounds like fun, except the migraine part. At least we know that you can save yourself by floating if you fall in the water.
Great story. Much better going to Boston than to these stupid lessons. It's never too late, though, to learn how to swim... but don't go to that same place again. Pick a proper instructor this time.
I did lessons when I was about 25. In eight weeks I learned to do something approximating a front crawl and whatever the one where you go on your back is called. Then I realised I didn't actually like the water and haven't set foot in a pool since.
Oh, and Boston sounds like a much better idea...
Great first line to a post..
oh what a shame you never learnt to swim Laurie! It's such fun. I love boston too.
Learn to swim! It's one of life's great pleasures.
two cents, i love boston. that was my first trip, but i've been back several times since then--four or five times to give talks in Cambridge, which was quite heady. walking around harvard square and rubbing the gleaming foot of John Harvard himself (well, his statue, anyway) is fun.
cyber lurker, i love that idea. LOVE it. i'm hoping now that we signed up for a full summer of lessons and he had to be there every saturday morning.
faye, i used to pack so so so light. not quite so light anymore. the older you get, the more stuff you need. my parents, when they traveled, used to bring along a duffle bag filled with nothing but shoes. (not for fashion reasons. but for troubled-foot reasons.)
flowerpot, dumdad, i wish. but i think it will never happen. i picture myself more like Caro, anyway--if i finally got around to doing it, i'd find i didn't like it. i hate swimming pools--the chlorine smell, the echoes off the tiles, the shrieks of the cannonballing little kids....
frankofile, thanks! and that's a great name for a blogger.
I think learning to swim would be easier than finishing up that college education at this point in life. Just a thought. :)
That's really too bad. There is an undescribable joy one gets when the water envelopes the body and you are weightless. Gliding through the water, the feel of it slipping through your fingers as you stroke...heavenly....
Chlorine is so hard on the hair. Think of the money you've saved NOT buying bottles of Chloro-Gone Swimmer's Shampoo.
ari, water is hard on my hair. makes it fuzz.
So did you tell the instructor or did you just bunk off? Swimming isn't the end-all, be-all. Especially if it ruins your hair.
Boston beats swimming every time. I had an aunt, sadly died a couple of years ago, who lived in New Hampshire so managed to get to boston a couple of times and loved it. I can swim but very rarely do because i dont like public swimming baths. I think I need a private pool and a villa in the south of france to really enjoy it again.
Brilliant post Laurie. On balance I'd also rather go to Boston than swim. How fab.
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