Do Pengiuns even blow bubbles?

I hate swimming. Let me rephrase that. I hate swimming in a pool. Swimming in a lake is fun like an old Mountain Dew commercial.  Beyond the community swimming pool nastiness, I find racing anaerobic toward a cement wall repeatedly almost as ridiculous as running across a freeway.

Swimming takes rhythm, buoyancy, mechanical awareness of one's body and the skill of not inhaling water while splashing around in a manner that propels one in a forward motion toward said concrete wall. To top if off, a middle aged fellow has to do all the above while being observed by either a really cute girl in short shorts,  red life guard t-shirt and whistle hanging from the edge of her lips or a pimply faced beef-cake man-child who'd rather you weren't in the pool at all so he could instead stare across the room at the cute girl with the shorts and whistle. Both potentially capable of saving your life.

Option B is to sit around the shallow pool in a humid line up with an assortment of other parents of kindergartners splashing around attempting to blow bubbles in the water. Moms and Dads stare at smart phones while the lap pool remains still like glass and that teen-age boy with the eyes for the other lifeguard cups his biceps with opposite hands and flexes his arms alternately. Teen-age boys have more muscles than brains. I'm not saying I was smart as a teen-ager, but what I would give to have had that physique in my youth. The swimmers wedged torso and voluptuous shoulders that I voluntarily forsook for strength and speed on a bicycle were like an express-lane to get girls attention.

"I shave my legs too!" I would retort in PE when the swimmers would point and laugh at my scrawny shoulders and tattooed tan-lines but the parallel stopped there.

As a father I want the best for my son. I want to give him the opportunities I didn't have. I think every father wants this. As both of you dear readers know, I have fostered learning to ride a bicycle with zeal. But I also want a well rounded son who can pay his own way through law or medical school. A strong, smart, well mannered, athletic son. I want his teen-aged angst to revolve around which scholarships to choose as well as how to decide on whom to take to prom without breaking too many teen-aged girl hearts. What father doesn't?

Enter swim lessons. The boy needs to learn to swim for obvious reasons such as not drowning and as exercise so he'll go to bed on time, without fuss and because we live 2 blocks from an indoor swimming pool in a place where it rains 9-months a year. But also for success in life. To develop his well-rounded sporting abilities, to challenge his fears and mostly to start the process of looking good with his shirt off.

The first night of lessons I sat with the other parents watching our little ones dance around in the water holding onto a hula-hoop and blowing bubbles into the heavily chlorinated water that killed the germs in the snot they all were flushing into the pool with each cute little not-so-synchronized curtsy below the surface. Don't get me wrong, I was proud of G and the effort he displayed after listening to and attempting each task put forth by his 16-year old teacher. But then I noticed the empty lap pool across the room. Class is 30-minutes. I barely manage to get 30-minutes twice a week riding the rollers in the garage well after G has gone to bed at night. The opportunity to get some exercise and blow off some steam while at the same time purging the energy of a 5-year old was too much to resist.

Other than high-school PE, swimming in the same high school pool Mark Spitz swam in, I have only swam for rehab after breaking an assortment of bones. To be clear, I have never swam for exercise while not medicated with narcotics, or as a puffy out of shape middle-aged man, or both. So I started. I started slowly like a water-buffalo wades into a muddy desert oasis. I moved forward, splashing with the vigor of a dozen 5-year olds holding onto a hula-hoop scared to submerge their noses. The weeks passed quickly, G looked forward to each swim night. I only missed one session. Finally, the last class, -graduation day arrived. All the kids got a certificate. I managed to swim a  clean, half lap without messing up my stroke/breath rhythm or inhaling water. Victory for the two-dozen or so half laps I stormed like a hurricane through.

Swim teachers are smart. They provide a certificate so each kid feels good about their water based accomplishments. But the teacher knows full well that 5 year olds can't read scribbled notes on the back of the certificate. "G can move onto the next class but only if he learns to submerge his head and blow bubbles under water."

So basically G failed swim class. He got the nod to move on if he does some extra practice, but really, he should be held back. Kind of like the high school math teacher that on the last day of school said to me, "Pop Quiz, do you know how to round up? Can 68.7% round up to 70%?"

Still riding high for my personal half lap of glory after 5weeks of not drowning in spite of myself, I let G walk tall back to the locker room as I came to terms that being not so strong of a swimmer might just be part of the genetic makeup. As a reward, I had promised him a stop at the vending machine we had walked passed every week for a well earned treat. His choice was clear. He wanted a Pop-Tart because, "That's what we have on long bike rides."