[embed]It’s that time of year again one last time and I’m trying my best to soldier on.

Letters From a Tired Swim Team Parent

A swim parent’s lament

Don’t look now. It’s swim team season. Picture taken by author.

Dear Pam,

It’s hard to believe it’s here.

Our final swim season.

For 13 years now, I’ve spent the better part of every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon from June to July rushing my kishkes to make Caesar salad, pasta salad or some other mystery salad with ingredients my children will actually eat, then searching for, finding and packing the salads and whatever nutritious treats and small bits of junk food I could find into a cooler. Then I would stuff the kids, chairs, a blanket and the fully laden cooler into the car so that we could drive, what?, eight blocks, so I could get them to the swim meets somewhat close to on time, depending on their stage of willingness and actual preparedness.

Of course, it could be further if it were an away meet. Some were just minutes away, others were clear across town and could take up to an hour to get to and then there was one that was relatively close, but still took almost an hour to reach in rush hour traffic. So, that was fun.

One pool that was only about 15 minutes away made the meets even more enjoyable by having fewer swim lanes than all the rest — four instead of six — meaning that races that might normally have two rounds (heats) would might require four or more heats, allowing us to extend our joy by at least an hour or, sometimes, into the next week (or so it seemed to me). On the plus side, that particular pool was within walking distance of a book shop, a grocery store and a Starbucks. So, there’s that.

Crowds of parents and kids stand by the side of the pool cheering, waiting to see if they actually know the swimmer they’re cheering for. Hey, with so many kids all wearing swim caps, it can be hard to tell. Photo by author.

And we would do all this so that we could hang out for three or four uneventful hours just so we could cheer our children on for a total of eight races, all of which generally lasted about a minute or two each. This meant that we spent up to four hours waiting for 8 to 16 minutes excitement each week, if our children remembered and made it to the starting block each time.

Up until this time I thought no other sport could jam pack a half hour of excitement into three hours the way baseball did, but apparently I was wrong.

The meets were the best when the kids were young because they were only in the early races, so we could get them home and have them in bed by around 7:30.

As they grew older, their nights grew later and later. How much later? Well, I believe there’s one pool in the area that’s still waiting for its final meet of last year to end.

Despite the inconveniences, the season has a Mikado-esque feel to it where the street blocks on either side of the pool are like the mythical Gilbert and Sullivan town of Titapu where everything comes back to life once a year. People seem to be in and out of each other’s houses, kids are all out playing on their lawns and everybody is greeting everyone else like long lost friends as they gradually make their way to the big event or rush back to retrieve some forgotten item be it a swim cap, a chair or, perish the though, an actual swim suit.

Everyone packs coolers, but few kids actually eat from them. Instead, they go to the concession stand between heats so that they can buy burgers, pizza or styrofoam cups filled with instant noodles. Or the occasional salad. Or soda. Or desserts. Or candy. Lots and lots of candy.

This either gets them sugared up and provides energy for them to make it through their next heat or adds weight and slows them down right before their next race, I’m never sure which.

One way for parents to keep busy is to volunteer and there are plenty of volunteer positions including child wrangling (making sure the younger competitors are in the right place at the right time), working at the concessions stand or timing.

Dive on in, the water’s fine. Taken by author.

Working as a timer for the first time in years this Tuesday night, I was reminded of how much swimming abilities change from year to year. In one event involving 6 year-olds, it took one swimmer so long to make it across the pool that I could have gone out for a sandwich. Diving skills also varied from simply falling off the board or sliding into the water as if they had been pushed to belly flopping and the beautiful jumps of the high school senior set. My favorite thing, though, was seeing a 10 year-old boy who wasn’t so much using strokes to propel himself through the water as he seemed to be punishing the water with his arms.

I’m told the season will be over before I know it, but I’m not buying it. In fact, I just heard that Punxatawney Phil has come up out of his hole and seen his shadow, which means six more weeks of swim season.

I suppose I should go over to the concession stand, serve stuff and get reacquainted with old friends I haven’t seen since last year. We’ll chat, we’ll laugh and, best of all, I’ll get free food at the end of my shift. And before I realize it, another meet will be over. And then another and another and another.

And before any of us realize it, we’ll be sitting in front of an inflatable screen at pool’s edge watching a video with the season’s highlights.

Then it will be time to pack it all up, put it all away and say our fond farewells for another year. That doesn’t mean we won’t see each other. We will because we all live in the same neighborhood, go to the same schools and shop at the same places, even if we don’t always run in the same crowds the rest of the year. So, we will inevitably run into each other in winter or fall and will immediately know we know that familiar face from somewhere, but can’t quite figure out where or maybe it’s that we just won’t recognize each other with all those clothes on.

And so it goes.

From the far edge of the pool,

David