7 June 2022

Tom and his family are vacationing at their condo in Maui this week.  Laurel posted several photos, including the waterfall, which is the photo of the day, which I found so beautiful.  It made me think of swimming, wondering who taught the girls to swim.

The two things I remember my father teaching me are swimming and driving a car.  Our driving lessons usually ended up with the two of us not speaking to each other as we returned home, but I did learn how to drive (and park) in San Francisco.  Before he would let me apply for a drivers' license I had to be able to parallel park on our very steep hill, in standard transmission car.  I got very good at being able to work the clutch and back into a space between two cars.

When I went for my drivers' license, the DMV office was on Van Ness Avenue, a flat part of the city.  they had me drive around for a couple of blocks and park in their back yard and then said I was safe to drive in SF.  I know I was safe to drive in San Francisco, but oh the many people who didn't do hills who were deemed qualified.  I thought about them a lot.

My father loved summer and any place where we could go where he could sunbathe and swim.  He always had a white nose, with cream he smeared on it to keep it from burning.

He probably taught us how to swim at the big pool at Boyes Hot Springs

It was a big pool--not sure if it was Olympic size or not.  The diving boards were at the deep end.  We stayed at the shallow end until we were comfortable swimming and then he took us down to have us learn to dive. 

I thought about that every time I saw one of our kids, who were on the diving team, diving off the high board .  I could dive off the low board just fine but I was terrified on the high board.  It took me a long time standing at the end, with my father in the pool encouraging me, to finally jump off, feet first.

Watching Ned do various dives off the high board made me feel amazed that he could do that.

I was especially amazed when he dove off the 5' diving board at UC Davis and landed on his stomach.  He swam the length of the pool, swam back, climbed the board again and dove perfectly. 

He actually won an award that year, and I'm sure it was because of his ability to dive a second time when the first dive had gone so wrong.