Right now, we are at the end of a hot week, so what could be better than a blog on the swimming lesson NOT? Yes, the entire week we have had temperatures reaching close to 100 degree F. I’ve been watering my plants daily. I put in a new row of plants out back which need some tender loving care until the roots get set. I’ve been drinking lots of ice tea to keep hydrated. But, just thinking about the cool pool water refreshes my mind and body on this hot day.
The Swimming Lesson NOT
So, I’m going to dive right into this topic and talk about the swim lesson. Of course, I want my Readers to know this is a true story which happened many years ago.
Initially, I had signed up to bring “my little friend” for swim lessons at the local indoor pool. The facilities were great. They had two full sized pools. There was a variety of swim lessons and classes for both the young and old. I selected a beginner’s class for non-swimmers for “my small friend”.
I always thought it is important to learn to swim. I didn’t learn to swim until I was in high school and only because our high school had swimming pools. Swimming was a required P.E. course. By then, most students knew how to swim, but I didn’t have a pool nor did I have swim lessons as a child.
Swimming Pool Mayhem
So, back to the swim lesson NOT blog. It seemed like there were about 15 small children in this learning-to-swim class. The adults would sit on the bleachers as the two swim instructors ran the class. There was both a teenage guy and gal teaching the class.
As the class went, each child went through the routine of kicking in the water, then the child would get out of the pool. They were instructed to walk and sit down on the edge of the other pool where the second part of the lesson was to be held. However, both instructors were still in the first pool and not paying attention to events the second pool.
Splish-Spash!
There were about four children sitting on the edge of the second pool waiting for the instructors. That’s when “my small friend” decided to jump in the pool. I was watching him and noticed this immediately. These children were in a deeper section of water. I got up and as I did I told to male instructor to, “Get him!” I proceed to the second pool to see if I could pull “my small friend” out of the water.
I tried to reach him but he was too far from the wall. Then I sat down and reached my legs out over the pool to see if he could grab on but he was still too far away. “My small friend” was just tall enough, so that if he pulled his head up, his nose would stick out of the water. If his head went one more time underwater, I was going to jump in to save him.
The Rescue
At that point, the male swimming instructor must have seen me, and zoomed under the water to our section of the pool. He pulled “my little friend” up and out.
I grabbed “my little friend” and pulled a beach towel around him. He was OK and had a smile on his face.
Ending Comments in the Swimming Lesson NOT
“My little friend” was fine but I was a bit shook up. The lesson I learned that day was to never rely on other people around water.
Always keep your alert up as what is going on around you, in particular, with small children about.
You can never be too careful and I’ll always remember that Swimming Lesson NOT. In fact, I think I learned more about pool safety that day than “my little friend”. However, we returned to class the following week.
At some point “my little friend” became a swimmer with lots of practice and, yes, I never took my eyes off him in the water.