Return of Memoryfest - Day 10/31

[bironic]

This one's in the same vein as yesterday's. Maybe some of you will have swimming pool-related memories or stories about meeting relatives, since the unconscious shriek didn't resonate much.

And I will be replying tomorrow. The head cold, it muddies the brain, and I had to play catch-up at work today after taking most of yesterday off.


10. High School

My grandfather's cousin R. and R.'s teenaged son M. came to visit from Sydney, Australia when I was about 14. My sister and my friend and I were out back in the swimming pool when they arrived. M. introduced himself by stripping down to his bathing suit and cannonballing in with us. We all started playing around. Soon he upended the float I was lying on. I remember letting out a cry when he did it, even though I'm a pretty quiet person and even though I saw him coming, and marveling at it as I hit the water.

WTF

Comments

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

If you know who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are, yes :)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was perplexed at your comment until I remembered what the cut text was. :)

[jadesfire.livejournal.com]

The Turtles were my first thought as well, although over here they were 'hero turtles' for reasons best known to the censors...

Anything involving a float in a swimming pool makes me think of holidays in Mallorca. I had a wonderful pink lilo with a transparent panel in it. One of my friends would lie on it and I'd swim underneath, looking up at their slightly distorted face through the plastic. Half my memories of those holidays are in a kind of muffled silence because I spent so much time under water.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

*is a dork* Because the UK censors considered the word 'Ninja' to be something that in itself warranted a higher rating. So it was changed. Reason I know: The change made it into the Danish version too, so that's how I first saw them as well.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Mmm, that sounds wonderful. I never learned to jump, dive or be otherwise submerged without pinching my nose closed with one hand, so I read your descriptions with a sort of gentle longing.

[thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com]

I very rarely used the local public pool when I was a kid because my aunt and two of my best friends all had pools and I preferred the privacy their back yards afforded. But when I did go to the public one (for parties or swimming lessons, usually) I was always amused by the sign on the front gate: Welcome To Our Ool. Notice There Is No P In It. Please Keep It That Way.

BTW, have you ever noticed what a ridiculous word 'pool' is?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ah, the public pool: chlorine, crowds, slimy showers, and an ice cream stand. Ours did not have the P sign. It must have been endlessly hilarious to a kid, no?

I like "pool." Lop off the "l," though, and there's a ridiculous word.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

My memory for the day is here: Exhaustion (http://elynittria.livejournal.com/20611.html#cutid1).

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Water. Mmm...

I always loved to swim as a child. I felt much better in the water than I did on land. (I am dorky enough to sort of relate to Victor Krum because of that - I felt as awkward on land as he's portrayed.)
One summer, when I was 10, we spent two weeks in Greece and I swam a lot! I was pretty good at free-diving at that point, so I was more below the surface than over and diving for all sorts of things at the bottom of the very clear Mediterranean.
Once, I brough a shell back up and got a terrible shock when the mollusc inside the shell sort of suddenly turned itself out. I dropped it and was afraid to go under again for a short while. Even though the poor thing could never hurt me and had probably just been trying to get underwater again so it wouldn't die. At least it didn't. I would've had a guilt-trip about that :-)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Unexpected mollusk appearance in one's hand! An underrepresented item on the list of things that can scare kids. I've never been surprised by one like that before, and can only imagine how startling and unsettling it must have been. It was probably nothing like picking one up at an aquarium, when you know the animal is in there, nor like playing with an empty shell on the beach.

That is a lovely image, a younger you diving in clear Mediterranean seas. (Even though I don't know what younger-you looks like -- in my mind you're just smaller and still have blue and black hair. :) )

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

One day, when I get a scanner, I'll do a "me through the times" picture post. As so many Danes I was born blond and went darker. So I was quite blond back then :-)

You are right, though, it's not exactly a very common scary thing!

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

When I was little, I took my first swimming lessons in a backyard pool up the street from my house. What I remember most about those summer days was walking up the street in my bathing suit and the heat of the pavement beneath my bare feet. I also remember a sudden thunderstorm one afternoon in the middle of my lesson and watching the lightning from the safety of the house. What I suspect my parents remember most is the day I walked into the deep end and nearly drowned when I was three.

[nicocoer.livejournal.com]

I don't remember much about my maternal great grandfather. I've been told that he was a clock maker and fixer who dabbled in inventing things and studied science in his free time. I'm also told that he died from choking on his false teeth.

His doctor, the story goes, had told him that he was too old to be driving himself around despite is overall good health for his age. Being unable to run errands himself, he started to hitch a ride downtown with a neighbor, also eldarly but a few years younger and still in possesion of a Driver's. Perhaps he should have been the one with an expired permit because one afternoon, while attempting the drive-through at the bank, he drove the vehicle into the divider.

The paramedics got there mighty quick, but were unable to identify what my great grandfather's trouble was. Too late, they realized that his false teeth had dislodged from his gums- becoming stuck in his throat and blocking his airways. It was because of the sudden revalation, caused by his death, of my great grandmother's alztimers that we moved back to PA from north-western Washington state.

My only actual memory of the man is of him standing inside on a hot summer day, his form a ghostly white shape behind the screen.

When we moved in to take care of my great grandmother I took over his garage attic, left just as it had been last time he had been up there- chemicals, mechanical parts, and yes, trashy novels. The dust coating everything was just like that one memory- faint and summer-time ghostly.

~N~