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Underwater memories of Mr. Mooney

October 25, 2002 ~ 11:03 a.m.

I have been swimming underwater a lot more in the pool lately. After my standard 16 lengths, I dive under and lark about like a dolphin. Well, a dolphin that suffered brain damage at birth, perhaps. I still feel a bit of trepidation every time I sink myself below the surface, but I am no longer terrified of being underwater. As long as I�m sure I can surface for air with no problem, I can handle it. Hell, I�m even beginning to enjoy it.

But as I swam from the medium lane barrier to the ladder at the end of the slow lane, propelling myself through the water and holding my breath for dear life, I was reminded of swimming lessons with Mr. Mooney.

Mr. Mooney was our long-time neighbor when I was growing up. It was always easy to remember his age because he was born in 1900. When my family first moved to the new house in the Boston suburbs in 1976, he was 76 years old. You wouldn�t have known it. He was very energetic, and loved gardening and golf and fishing. He loved to talk about the Boston Celtics, his friendship with Bob Cousy and his days as a college basketball coach. It was through him that I first found out that before our house was built in 1936, he used to grow rhubarb in the field that is now my parents� back garden. He would tell silly jokes and pull harmless pranks on me and my older sister when we were young. Mrs. Mooney was just as charming. A former school teacher, she had a way with children. All of us adored the Mooneys. They were the best neighbors you could have asked for. As the years went on, you could always rely on the Mooneys being there.

I first learned to swim at the age of 13 � well, it was more like I learned to tread water, but I was nevertheless elated as I had discovered a very rudimentary way to swim. Just the summer before, I had refused to join the rest of my family in a raft in the North Shore ocean waters because I was too scared of the water. I just sat dejectedly on the rocks, a 12-year-old who hated his cowardice. So imagine my joy at finding myself, quite spontaneously treading water in the pool while on summer vacation just one year after that horrible self-loathing experience.

The summer after that, an 84-year-old Mr. Mooney took me to the pool in his son�s backyard and taught me swimming techniques. But he did not teach me the forward crawl or the breaststroke. To Mr. Mooney, there was only one way to swim � underwater. As he shouted words of encouragement and praise at me, I would push my 14-year-old body deep below the surface and swim about 20 feet to where he was standing. Considering that the depth of the water was five feet, that I stood only 5�2� at the time, and he was well above the water line at 5�11�, I considered this a great accomplishment. To me, Mr. Mooney was a very tall man and five feet of water was no different than the deep sea. After nearly a whole summer spent swimming underwater with Mr. Mooney, I lost all fear of the water that I�d had just two years before.

After that I did not swim much anymore simply because I did not ever get much of a chance to. I took a few dips in the pool at the University of Massachusetts, but it did not become a habitual practice. Since I have been at the college that I work at now, I have taught myself the breaststroke and the forward crawl. I consider the crawl �proper� swimming and it�s mainly all I do now. As my focus became above-water swimming, I had developed a dislike for going underwater. I may have gained half-a-foot of height between my junior high school days and today but had lost my underwater confidence. I admit, as comfortable as I was treading the surface of the water, I had grown scared again to dip underneath the water. I am now in the process of slowly but surely learning to overcome that. I have been sacrificing my time in the Jacuzzi after my laps to fine-tune my underwater swimming.

Mr. and Mrs. Mooney both died in 1997 � he at the age of 97, her at the age of 88. Even if I still lived in the Boston area, it would not help insofar as missing them terribly.

But as I gain back my confidence underwater, I will hear Mr. Mooney in my mind, shouting the same praise and encouragement at me that he did in that pool during the summer of �84.

� M.E.M.

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