Chronically Ironic

·My Time in the SS

I know. An elusive and offensive title will grab you all every time. SS, for all intents and purposes in this tale, can stand for Several Summations (har har:)

Senior Swimming

Swimming with Seizures

Setbacks as a Senior

Swimming and Sinking?

At my high school, they offered a class of which I cannot remember the official title. “Swimming with the Handicapped” (this was still the 80’s, and “Mentally Challenged” wasn’t really on the scene yet – dare I say, the Age Before Political Correctness?) or it may have just been called “Swimming 102.” Whatever. The special Ed classes from the district would come twice a week and we, as seniors who chose this weird but easy elective, got to swim with them and teach them swimming “technique.”

Let’s get something straight right now: Despite what I do and have done for a living, I don’t really now, and have never considered myself a People Person. I don’t like a lot of people. I don’t like a lot of types of people. Yes, I was Student Council President in the 8^th grade. Yes I was a fucking cheerleader. Yes, I worked in Home Health Care and yes, I work in a service industry as we speak.

That does not mean I am good at it. It might mean I am a good liar. I think we’ve already established that in another story. I am almost certain this is not the story in which I should have the illuminating revelation that my entire life has been an elaborate web of lies. Perhaps I should do that in a story entitled “Why I Hate People.” The main problem in my whole hating-people-scenario is that people, inevitably, like me for no apparent reason.

However, I liked these kids. They were funny, cute, and endearing after awhile. They were honest, which most people (and perhaps myself, but I’m not fucking exploring that right now, dammit) are not. They had problems, though – and this would be my first and impression-filled experience with what we used to call Special Needs kids.

There was one kid named Carlton, and I cannot forget him to this day. Carlton was about 8, and had to wear a helmet outside of the pool as he had seizures all the time. Adorable and smart as fuck. He would do a total Rainman thing and bust out with some completely bizarre fact about Mars or earthquakes or toothpaste and then laugh hysterically. Then have a seizure. His smile would light up your day, and then you’d have to see him change entirely. That part of the gig sucked, but oddly interested me. Obviously not enough to go into medicine or special Ed teaching or hell, even social work, since we have already discovered that I am nothing if not absolutely lazy.

Leslie was another seizure kid. You would think that this many kids prone to seizures should not be put around or even into a pool, but it seemed to calm them to be in the water. We did dumb stuff, made them swim in big rings holding hands, had them kick on kickboards. They loved it.

I was in my “I-only-listen-to-punk” phase (whew! That was over quick, to the jubilation of my parents) and my friend Leigh and I were writing really bad lyrics with no instruments, since acoustic guitar and the Godspell soundtrack didn’t really lend itself to punk. Anyway, I wrote a little ditty about my Funtime Swim Friends:

Carlton had a seizure, Leslie had one too
They were thrashin’ all around their faces turnin’ blue

Nice. That never happened, by the way. Their “faces turnin’ blue.” They would just seize then bite a stick and then they’d be fine. There were more lyrics, I am sure, but none that I can remember. Except from another song entitled “Kick my Mother From the Inside,” which had something to do with being angry in the womb. Fuck you, I was an A student. Thanks Mom, for all the goddamn flash cards as you drove me to the Y.

The swimming class has never really left me, and since we are going on almost 20 years of memories, I guess that’s a lasting one. Those little kids were great – unassuming, unharmed, untouched by all the bullshit that is in this world. I hope they all stayed that way. I think, at times, we all wish we could be stuck in Handicapped Swimming class forever.

Glories of the 80's, The Short Bus