Reunited with an old friend

I love swimming....

I always have, and I probably always will.


Back when I was 5 I took swimming lessons for the first time. From then until I was 15 I spent anywhere from 5 - 7 days a week at the Williston Country Club in Williston, SC at the pool.

Back in the day it was amazing. There was a slide, a diving board. The deep end was 9 feet deep, and there were always 25 or so people there. Unless it was raining or thundering, I was one of them.

My mom (a teacher at the time) and I would go every day. She would sit out and talk with her friends, and I would swim until I was very tired and very sunburnt. At 15, the time had come that they just gave me a job. I was a Lifeguard for the next 3 summers.

As the years wore on, insurance worries killed the diving board, I think the sliding board may be gone as well, and after that...things were just not the same. I still went though.

After my freshman year @ Clemson, I lived on Cape Cod for a summer. I worked at Camp Good News, and was recertified as a Lifeguard and certified as a swimming instructor. After that time (1993), I swam only very intermittently. I got moved a lot, I got married, I had kids. Life goes on...

Now we live in Atlanta, and when we moved here I was happy to learn that our neighborhood has a pool. What I was not prepared for, was for my love of the water to become a significant part of my life again. We went on the second day the neighborhood pool opened up for the season, and have not looked back. Hannah and Emily beg to go to the pool everyday, and many days they get what they want. Hannah took swimming lessons last year, but this year she takes two weeks worth. She also (unlike last year) has a place to practice. (not that she is not doing well already). So now Hannah at 5 (almost 6) is taking swimming lessons and wants to go to the pool everyday. You can bet I am going with her.

Our stories are in many ways generational. In good ways and bad ways, we relive the patterns of our parents, and pass on our patterns to our kids. The trick is to break the negative cycles, and replace them with new positive ones. Look at your parents, and your kids. Realize the good things you want to pass on and root out the things that you want to end.

Have a good week...

-Cliff