Structure on the old dam road

[Teresa]

hahaha... well, I guess she told you!


I am sorry Ta Ta that you are not a swimmer.
I need to take you out and try to teach you to at least keep yourself afloat in case you ever fall in the river or lake. .
But you can't wear your floatie this time...

[Mom70x7]

Good luck! 

I tried several times this summer to get her into water -
even with a certified life guard standing by -
reassured her she didn't ever have to even put her head in the water.
Instead it was excuse after excuse after excuse.     

[emptynest]

I will offer her private adult swimming lessons next summer 2008.  I'll even turn off the cameras and put away all mirrors.  The only thing I can't do is lower the water.  After she learns how to swim, we'll have a pool party and you're all invited.

[Teresa]

Ok.. I think that is a wonderful idea...
But will she go for it?? 

[Janet Harrington]

Do I have to put my face in the water?

[Teresa]

I swim without putting my face in the water.. but if you want to learn to swim , you will have to learn to hool your face and put it in the water.
If you don't.. and you fall off the edge of the lake etc.. ( and you KNOW you will go under the water) you need to learn to not be afraid..until you come to the top and can swim to the side.

Okay?
Want me to go with you, so you won't be so afraid?

[Wilma]

Shouldn't she be afraid of being in the water with you, Teresa?

[Janet Harrington]

Yes, she should and she is.

I had an extremely bad experience with the water and I am just not fond of it.  I did take swimming lessons, but I was never a very strong swimmer.  I don't think I ever passed my last test.  Unless I was hurt, I think I could get to shore okay, but if I needed to save another life, I don't think I could.  That's why I know that if someone is drowning that you can throw a spare tire to them or at least push it out there to them.  Keeping rope tied to a empty plastic bottle that you can throw out to them is also something you can use.  Anytime I have gone out on the water, I always, always wear a life jacket and if I can't get one, I just don't go.

[Roma Jean Turner]

I can relate to Janet.  I always say, "I like to be on the water, not in the water."
I was sent to swimming lessons as a child, even though my grandmother was scared of the water.  However, I was
so allergic to the chlorine, the doctor stopped the lessons, so I have never learned to swim.  I put on the life jacket
and have ski'd a little, done float trips etc.  I always tell my friends on a canoe trip,  that if I go in the water over somebodies cigarette or a can of beer, there will be hell to pay.  I have never gone over yet.  Ha, ha.

[Judy Harder]

I have always loved being on or in the water.
I never learned how to swim as a child.....My mother was afraid of everything..........water, boats, storms  and
whenever we went to the lake to Fish, I can remember all the don'ts that she would tell us.
She would also get sea-sick just standing on a dock and then on top of this, would only allow 2 inches of water in
all the bathtubs I got into when a child.

so by the time I was an adult the fear? of the water was really in me.
when my baby's were growing up, we did spend a lot of time at the State Lake south of Independence.
Free swimming for the kids and we did a lot of fishing out there too.
So, cause we spent so much time at or near water, I made sure the kids got Red Cross swimming lessons while growing up.
I stayed and watched them and practiced what they were taught when we got to the lake.

I could float, I could do all the swim styles....not well, but knew how to do them. I never could teach myself how to breathe while I was swimming and still would not go out pass my bustline.
I really scared myself when I stepped in a hole while in the lake..
( I should tell you where we swam was the swim area, and there were swimming ramps a short distant from shore.
It was usually shallow enough I could just about walk out to it wading through the water.)
Well one of the times I did that I stepped in a hole and no one I  was with knew what had happened.

I learned (later) that there were people just an arm's length away from me, but because of the fear, it didn't register.

now I love being at or on water..............but, because of my panic, make sure I have a life  jacket.....I will go with who ever and even like a little white water..........but that Jacket will be on me and another thing I won't do is JUMP into the water.

It looks easy  and it looks like fun..........but that is another fear  Mom instilled in me...........heights and if you ever hear that I commited suicide by jumping OFF of ANYTHING...........that is wrong. I was murdered. LOL........Had an uncle who while on a drunk fell to his death when I was about 7 or 8........and of course that just put a cap on the jumping off problem.

Some day my greatest wish is that I do learn how to swim......at least well enough I can enjoy myself in a cement-pond.
I will probably never be easy about being on a lake or river without a life-jacket on.

should I say that you who got to skip school with or without parents knowing it were lucky. You learned just how to experience life before it Kicked you in the teeth..............enjoy the memories.
I do envy you the fun.

Hugs and God bless