I love the smell of chlorine in the morning

Apr 12, 2009 00:00

So I was in the hot tub at the gym the other day after my workout enjoying a good soak. The smell of pool chlorine is a trigger for me back to the glory days of high school swimming - twice a day workouts (one at 0530 and one at 1630).

The pool at my high school was under the courtyard, which was built in the early 1900's, and there was the constant danger of being hit by falling chunks of masonry. The pool heater was quirky at best; the water was either bathtub warm or freezing cold with little in between. In the morningn workouts in the winter, the pool was so fogged that you could only see five feet in front of you. Somehow if we stopped, coach could still see us though, and a kickboard or pool buoy would come sailing out of the fog at us.

We had this game called "jungle ball" - which was rather like water polo, but without the rules. Physical mayhem was encouraged - wrestling, dogpiling, and dunking were part of the game. About the only fouls were hitting, nut shots, and pounding someone's face into the deck. I did very well at this game, being both a "moose" and being the captain of the team.

I remember once during my senior year I had the chance to play jungle ball with a class of freshmen. The coach - Leo - built me up to them as this monstrous, unstoppable, indestructible machine - nicknaming me Kimala (I think he'd been watching wrestling). Anyway, these poor kids were scared to death of me, and I proceeded to plow through them. They just couldn't stop me - in the shallows I'd get my feet under me and carry a pile of them to the side of the pool en route to scoring a goal. In the deeps I'd either just go around them, or under them, or flip a quick pass to one of my teammates for an easy goal - since they were all covering me.

A common tactic was to hold someone under the water until they let go of the ball. This didn't work on me because I'd pull the person under with me, and invariably have breath left to spare after they gave up and swam away.

Leo passed away 10 years ago this month after a year-long battle with cancer. I never saw him at the end or found out the details, but apparently it was a nasty fast-acting cancer, and he looked positively skeletal at the end. It was hard to believe because the man was so intense, so in-your-face, so powerful, that we considered him almost a force of nature. The memorial service was packed and overflowing out onto the street.

Here's to you, Leo, wherever you are.
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