My first fear

I learned to swim from a woman who would later, on a different side of town, be my 4th grade teacher. I learned to swim at Lakeside Swim and Racquet club near Moody Middle. The pools were situated in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Everything was outdoors, outside and open to the elements. The pools shallow ends were 3 feet in the adult pools, and had stairs and a metal handrail that lead down into the pool. I do remember being afraid to jump in the pool even though I knew my dad would catch me and that the water was only 4 feet deep. I don’t know why I was so (?) to just jump in and swim. I remember in my swimming lesson that we used kickboards, and these styrocrap items gave me complete confidence in swimming the length of the pool. Yet, I dare consider swimming the length of the pool without one. I was sure this was not possible. Soon, some wise a$$ took my kickboard away from me. I did not like this. Thank you dad. I am thinking this is the summer I learned to ride a bike as well. All’s good, right?
My dad was going to school at VCU at this time, as was my mother. Someone’s bright idea was to take me swimming with my dad at the Franklin St. gym. I remember going with my dad and putting on my swim trunks. I remember being totally confused that we were putting our swim trunks on inside. I did not believe there was a pool in the basement of the building like my dad told me. The only time I’ve ever seen anything pool like was in an aquarium. I just went along with being a stupid kid and humored him. We walk into this hallway that has all of these little 1 inch square tiles that are an aqua blue color. I am in awe. I have never been anywhere like this. At this point, I am not entirely sure that there is not a pool in the basement of this building. The hallway opens into a giant room that is the size of a gym, only bigger: complete with the 20 ft tall ceiling. And yes-there is a giant pool here that literally is the size of the room, except for the outer edge to walk around. The room is dim-there doesn’t seem to be any natural light in there. We put down our towels and my dad jumps in to the shallow end: which is 5 feet deep. An older man gets out of the pool, and there is a cane with an arm grip at the top for him to slide his arm in. The man has no right foot, and his leg is missing from below the knee. The end is rounded off. I recall this like the man threw his amputated leg in my face and made me touch the rounded edge as I cried my a$$ off. Now this did not happen, I am just surprised it didn’t. I don’t notice anyone else here.
I might have started freaking out when my dad told me to jump in to him. Let’s see I’ve never seen NO pool in a building, it’s kinda dark in here (apparently I had major objections to the fact that we were NOT outside), the shallow end is 5 feet deep so you know the deep end is 50 feet deep because you’re a kid and you’re not stupid and you know that in deep water that’s 50 feet deep there are animals living because you saw that at the Baltimore Aquarium just 2 weeks ago and you are sure as hell not jumping in that pool with sharks in it, and I am not going to be dumb like the man who got his leg eaten off in the pool some time ago who doesn’t know any better than to find a different pool to swim at, and my poor dad who is about to lose his leg or get eaten completely.
I am not sure if my father ever coaxed me into that pool that I was sure had sharks and other sea animals in it, or not. About 15 years later, I was back at this same pool getting my Red Cross Lifeguard certification. I was also told at this point that my uncle Geoff had a friend that broke into this pool, and drowned. (I am not sure about this-guess the source). I did wonder about this when I was doing my training here. That may be ironic if it was true-teaching life guarding in a pool where someone drowned because there was no life guard on duty when some young guys broke into the building many years ago. By the way, the pool is only about 15 feet deep or so, but to a small young kid 5 feet can be intimidating when you are a tiny runt. And, no there are no sharks or other sea animals that live in the deep end of the pool in the Franklin St gym.