Tag: Personal

The Fifty Free

Image: Hello I’m Nik from Unsplash.com. These are not my goggles, but mine were very similar.

When I was in middle school, I was part of the swim team.  This meant sacrificing a couple Saturdays a month to the swim team gods—aka the Midtown Marlins.  (It also entailed sacrificing a portion of your brain to the team cheers, because I will remember “WHO rocks the house, I said the MARLINS rock the house and when the MARLINS rock the house they rock it all the way down!” until the day I finally succumb to dementia, and even then I’m not entirely sure it’ll be gone.)  Instead of getting to watch Saturday morning cartoons, we’d get up ridiculously early, drive to some random pool, unpack our stuff and wither away in the sun until our events came up.  It was ridiculously boring, except for that one time that one boy brought the Haunted Mansion version of Clue and let me play. 

The Marlins had their own blue and black bathing suit, but like with all swim teams, accessorizing was permitted, which basically meant that you were allowed to wear whatever goggles and swim cap you wanted.  Though, at eleven, a swim cap wasn’t that big a deal and I hated the way it felt, so I never wore one.  However, I had these absolutely fabulous rainbow goggles with one big thick strap in the back.  They were red, yellow, and pink—they looked like someone had taken a tropical Starburst pack and melted them together into stripes.  They were my absolute favorite goggles.  Mom had also gotten me this super fancy bathrobe—it was purple with pink dogs on it.  So yeah, basically I was the epitome of cool. 

But now, I must prepare you, reader, for my greatest tragedy.  Whenever someone asks me, “What is your greatest failure?,” I tell them the following story:

I was eleven.   This swim meet in particular was a big deal, because I had gotten a swimming promotion.  It wasn’t one that I particularly wanted, but when you’re eleven years old and your mom carts you to swim team and Coach Savannah is kind of a hard-ass, you do what you’re told.  Instead of swimming the usual 25 meters—one length of the pool—I was going to swim the 50 freestyle, which meant I had to go there and back.  This.  Was.  Huge.  One of my friends, who was a much better swimmer than I was, had already done this a few meets before, and she was excited about getting to swim it.  See, in my friend’s case, she was excited.  I dreaded it.  I was freaking out. 

Once, one of my friends mistakenly thought it was time, so she dragged me by the sleeve of my purple bathrobe with pink dogs on it over to the lane monitors, who kindly informed both my friend and I that I had to wait a few more heats.  My nerves were shot—I was a basket-case.  I was gonna cry if we couldn’t get this damn race over with.  (Of course, I wasn’t allowed to say “damn” when I was eleven.) 

Finally, at long last, I was guided to my lane.  I shed my purple bathrobe with the pink dogs on it and gave it to my mother.  I pulled my Starburst-colored goggles over my eyes.  I curled my toes around the edge of the pool and pointed my skinny arms into a little point, just like a pencil.  (I wasn’t on the diving blocks because I sucked at diving, and I also have harrowing memories of diving clinics.)  The buzzer that every swimmer has come to fear in their heart of hearts sounded.  I jumped into the pool and began kicking like my life depended on it. 

Just so everyone knows, the freestyle is supposedly the most efficient stroke.  I was zipping along, but I wasn’t in the center lane.  If you watch Olympic sports, usually the swimmers with the best times make it to lanes four and five, which means they can keep track of everyone else.  Even though I wasn’t in the middle, I had a good feeling about this race once I had started to swim.  I was 90% sure I was ahead of everyone else.  Victory was in my grasp.  Maybe this stupid race wasn’t so bad after all!  I brushed the wall with my fingertips so the lane monitor could stop my clock.  I said out loud in my little, shivering, jubilant, eleven-year-old voice, “I think I won.”  I’d have to turn around to see my times and to ask the lane monitor, of course.  I pulled myself up out of the pool and turned.

My heart, which was in my throat because it was beating so fast, sank into the pit of my stomach. 

I screwed up.  I screwed up so, so badly.  Everyone else had turned at the wall, because this stupid race was two lengths of the pool.  I internally wailed in anguish as I threw myself back into the water and raced to play catch-up. 

I didn’t come in last.  I got sixth place out of eighth. 

It didn’t matter.  I still felt like the world had collapsed.  I was sobbing, I was inconsolable, I felt like I should have been disqualified.  (I should have been.  I had gotten out of the pool before the end of the race; there’s no way that’s not against the rules.)  Once the race was over, my mom placed my purple bathrobe with the pink dogs on it around my dripping body as I cried into my Starburst-colored goggles.  I pulled them up off my face so I wouldn’t get tears in them and sadly walked over to the little table to collect the little stiff sixth place ribbon, which lost its stiffness as soon as it was placed in my little wet hands.  I’m pretty sure I threw that ribbon out—no need to have a stain like that on my record.  I was so embarrassed; if the world could have spontaneously swallowed me whole it would have been a welcome experience.  In my memories, my mother didn’t do the best job of consoling me, because she was laughing at the whole thing.  (She’ll probably deny it, but honestly what’s a little more trauma at this point.) 

I sat miserable in my purple bathrobe with the pink dogs on it as mom drove home.  Mom informed me that it wasn’t a big deal and that I still did well, and if I did the event again I would probably win it. 

It didn’t help at all.

But do you want to know the worst part?  The absolute worst part of this whole thing?  Of course you do.  You’re sadistic. 

This race:  it’s on home video.  It cuts off when I start to pull myself out of the pool. 

The Blue Bomber

From Kelly Blue Book website: 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

We’re going to do things a little differently today—I’m going to tell you all a story.  (Names are changed for the sake of privacy.)  This is as true as I can remember it, but of course, as the saying goes, time heals all wounds and screws up all memories.  (That is the saying, right?) 

This is a story about my next-door neighbor, James Fillippo.  For some background, I have lived in the same house since I was eighteen months old, and the Fillippos (James and his wife, Greta) have lived in the house next door for years before we moved in. 

Probably the best way to describe James Fillippo is “Jack of all trades, master of all trades.”  While most people lack the ability to be an overall handyman, Mr. Fillippo was able to fix most of the handyman problems in our home.  He grew up flying and working on planes; he had even gotten his pilot’s license before he could legally drive, which made him useful all around.  I have an extensive list of things Mr. Fillippo has helped us fix—a dryer motor with a screwdriver stuck on it, the dining-room chandelier which randomly fell off the ceiling one day, and a helpful hand when we trimmed one of the trees on our property.  Perhaps the most notable instance of his help was when the main waterpipe to our house burst.  This lead to a three day excavation project, with my father, Mr. Fillippo, and one other neighbor digging the equivalent of a WWI trench in our front yard to get to the pipe.  I was relatively young at the time, so most of my memories were of three men digging a hole in our front yard while we went to the neighbor’s to use the bathroom.  Eventually, a plumber had to be called, but my guess is that Mr. Fillippo pulled most of the weight in that project.  The plumber was only putting on the finishing touches.  We haven’t had pipe trouble since.  As entertaining as that story would be, however, this is about something entirely different. 

When I was growing up, my father had a 1995 blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.  This thing was old by the time I could first remember it; they don’t even make Oldsmobiles anymore.  The exterior was blue, as were the seats on the inside, and it smelled funny, especially in the summer.  Whatever that fuzzy crap was in the interior did nothing for aesthetics or the olfactory sense.  It was hot as hell in that car due to the fact that the air conditioning didn’t work.  Rolling down all the windows wasn’t an option, because the driver’s side window wouldn’t roll down.  Once, when my grandmother was driving the car back from taking me to church, she realized this fact too late.  As a treat, we were going to McDonald’s, but she couldn’t order anything out of her window.  I rolled down my window, and she shouted the order out the backseat.  When it came time to pay, she gave me her credit card, pulled up so the backseat was level with the cashier’s window, and I leaned way, way out to pay for our food.  Grammy laughed so hard telling my mother all about it when we got home.  That stupid car. 

The 1995 Oldsmobile was older than my parents’ marriage and was affectionately (or not so affectionately) nicknamed “The Blue Bomber.”  My father got this car when my parents were dating, and as such, it was not the most reliable thing.  Eventually, along with the host of other problems, the stupid thing wouldn’t start.  Getting to work obviously became a problem.  Time to pop the hood. 

I’ll admit, I don’t know the first thing about cars.  But Mr. Fillippo does.  He knows almost everything about non-organic things with moving parts.  So when he saw that my dad had popped the hood, he came over to help.  They were outside working on that car for hours, taking multiple trips to get parts and replacing things, which was complicated because apparently the battery is hidden among car parts that I will never understand.  All day, they messed around under the hood of that car, and it wouldn’t work.  Despite Mr. Fillippo’s best shot, he had to admit defeat for the day.  The Oldsmobile won, and my mom and dad discussed possibly getting a new car. 

The next morning, Mr. Fillippo was on our doorstep, ready for another day of pointless tinkering, or so I thought.  This man really liked to play mechanic—it was Saturday morning, for crying out loud.  No one wants to work on a car that early on their day off.  Why in the hell—

“I know what’s wrong with your car.” 

My dad blinked.  “Really?” 

“It came to me last night.”  (If I wanted to exaggerate this for effect, I would say that Mr. Fillippo had stayed up all night working on that car in his head.) 

I’m going to be honest, I don’t actually know what was wrong with that car.  All I know is that it didn’t take long to fix.

A few hours later, my sisters and I gathered on the sidewalk in front of our house.  Dad turned the key, and the engine of that ancient, stupid car with the broken window and no A/C turned over.  We applauded. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.  That was not the only time that car broke down, and though Mr. Fillippo and my father faithfully repaired it every time it died, eventually The Blue Bomber was replaced by a Ford Fusion, which my father nicknamed “The Hotrod.”  It’s definitely not the fanciest of cars, but after that blue monstrosity that sat in our driveway for years, it sure felt like one.  I had a lot of memories with that stupid blue car.  I’ll never forget the awful smell, or how you could sear your hands when you touched the metal part of the seatbelt on a hot day while the sun pelted down onto the car.  When I got my driver’s permit, that was the first car I drove—once, around the block.  It went poorly. 

Mr. Fillippo has fixed many things for us over the years.  But I like this story best; it’s probably the best example of how his mind works.  He breathed machines, and he kept everything, so if you needed a tool, he would absolutely have it.  My dad worked in Mr. Fillippo’s tool shed a lot, because he had the tools my father didn’t.  He was the neighbor who was always working on a project. 

Not so much anymore.  Mr. Fillippo is in his nineties, and when I went over to his house recently, he told me he was having trouble even walking one time around his small house.  He has a chairlift on his stairs, which he hates because it takes away his ability to exercise.  I’ve never met anyone else like him, and I doubt I ever will again.  Anyone who could make that damn car turn its engine over truly had a gift.