Delayed announcement

I was planning to make an announcemen today, but Friday is the worst day for that sort of thing.  Unless you're firing someone.  Friday is perfect for that.  But I'm not firing anyone, so the announcement will have to wait.

Instead, I'd like to re-share a vacation story.  Lisa (from expandng) got me thinking about vacations.

Who doesn’t love summer vacation??? Whether you’re a child or adult (or a little of both), it’s something to look forward to. Each year during my dad’s summer vacation we would have a Sunday picnic next to the creek on his family farm; we’d spend an evening at a carnival (funnel cake!!!) and we would spend one day at a beach on the Chesapeake Bay. The rest of the week we would do one special project or another. One year we built a carport.  Other years we shingled the roof, dug ditches, built sheds, cleared a field on the farm...well, you get the idea.

But this isn’t a story about work. It’s about the annual trip to the beach on which I learned to swim. It was a great little beach. There were trees close to the sand, so you could sit in the shade on cool grass if you got overheated.  There were inexpensive arcade games and skee ball. Aunts and uncles joined us and they usually had good food to share.

The year I turned seven, my dad took me out in the water to teach me to swim. He pointed to an aunt floating by (on her back) to convince me that people float and swimming was easy. He held me at water level so I could practice—I worked my arms and legs like a pro. He kept saying he wasn't going to let go, I should just keep paddling and kicking.

Then, of course, he let go. I kept working my arms and legs…and I sank like a stone. Within seconds I could feel that I had settled on the bottom and I was lying on my dad’s feet. But I was still paddling and kicking!!! Eventually he reached down to pull me up and we made our way back to shore. I took my little bucket and shovel to a different part of the beach so he wouldn’t get the idea to try to teach me to swim a second time—I thought he was just a little too slow pulling me up that first time. LOL!

Okay, so this wasn’t really a story about me learning to swim.  It was a story about me learning to sink! But I was REALLY good at it.  :D  I did learn to swim two years later, in a pool.

Soooo, how did you learn to swim???