Kvelve's Comments: Summer is for swimming

Water and sunshine mix.

This is a lesson I learned years (OK, decades) ago. 

Summer in Montana tends to make one seek cooling water, which can be anything from a mountain lake to a civic swimming pool. 

Nothing like the frigid waters of the old Athletic Park swimming pool in Billings to take the bite out of a 100-plus degree day, especially after a morning of impromptu baseball on the adjacent practice field after scaling an 8-foot cyclone fence to get at aforementioned ball field. 

The place was usually packed by mid-afternoon, the oval-shaped pool teeming with swimmers wearing everything from cutoff jeans to regular swimsuits. 

And where there is swimming access, there are swimmers, or at least swimmers and those who flail at the water in faux pas swimming moves. 

I learned how to swim very early on, not because anyone threw me out of a boat in a lake and said, “see you on shore.”  My motive was to beat the heat and check out the girls in the pool. 

Swimming and Montana go together. Anyone who lives anywhere in the Northwest, if not the world, should learn how to swim, unless your residence is in the middle of the Gobi Desert. 

My buddies and I would spend hours at the pool on hot summer days.  Our fingers were wrinkled by prolonged exposure to water, but we were cool...in more ways than one. 

So, when it became time to teach my three kids how to swim, it was an easy decision.  

The three of them took to the water like fish. Not only did they learn how to stay afloat in water, but they also found another sport they could dive into (pardon the pun). And as a result of being in a homeowners association in the Seattle suburb in which we lived, there was a swim team organization that competed against other HOAs in the eastern suburbs. 

And all three of them spent at least some time making a few bucks by being lifeguards and/or teaching swimming lessons. 

When I saw that the Plains public pool was open for the summer, it brought a smile to my face.  

Already this year, with official summer still not here (June 21), I longed for those days when we could hit the local pool or break out the old slip-and-slide for some sun-beating fun. For those of you who don’t know, a slip and slide was a long plastic sheet rolled out on the ground and attached to a garden hose which provided water to make the surface slippery and fun. 

The other night, when it was still 90 degrees at midnight and the fans in my bedroom were on full blast, I almost did the unthinkable. 

No, I did not break out and dust off my slip-and-slide. At 70-plus years of age and with sports injuries reminding me daily of the “fun” I’ve had in sports over the years, running and diving onto a slippery plastic rug was not a good idea. 

My pacemaker would probably not have liked it. 

But I did think of the next best thing, a quick romp through the lawn sprinkler; neighbors be damned. It would have been an amazing sight for sure. 

The option is still there. 

I’ve been a water and swimming fan most of my life, since the early days when I was forced to wear water “wings” and go by the name “Bob” because of my bobbing up and down in the water trying to move forward. 

The three kids all became really good swimmers. I have a tattoo of a dolphin on my shoulder after telling my daughters I would get a “tat” if they won X number of races for their Dolphin swim team. 

And to this day, if I fell out of a boat, or even stepped into a really deep mud puddle, I would not panic. 

I learned how to swim.