Mostly Satire                                 

Freestyle as demonstrated by Peter Prydekker, 1972

“Swim or grow old.” That’s what my GP told me  some twenty years ago, when I was diagnosed with circulation problems in my lower extremities (all three of them). Limited circulation and the pains that accompany this ailment were later aggravated by peripheral neuropathy.

Walking gradually became more and more painful and unbalanced, and for that reason my doctor, who was himself a swimmer, told me to go swim, or go down the drain even faster. He could have suggested cycling, or rowing, or any number of other fitness stuff, but I liked swimming (see picture below. I’m the one with monocle), and had done so all my life. I grew up in Holland on a canal. and If I hadn’t learned to swim at a very young age I would  not be here to tell this tale.

                         French Railway Poster around 1900

 US  Swimming champions 1920 in their cute little dresses…. Contrast with the French

       When we decided to get away from Florida’s heat and humidity and moved to North-Eastern Georgia, we made sure to find a place on the water, where I could swim and not get (much) older. We ended up on the Chattahoochee River and I have been swimming upstream ever since and even published a book of short stories with the title Swimming Upstream, available at Amazon. Check it out here. 

During the first eight or ten years we lived here, I swam upstream in that river daily and some days for hours, always with our two Standard Poodles, who played and cavorted to their and my heart’s content. While swimming in the Chattahoochee River I met with all sorts of wildlife, including Copperhead snakes, deer, enormous toothy gars, geese, ducks, Black bear cubs, and sometimes people, mainly in kayaks floating down the river.

Some years ago, when I got too doddery for romping with my dogs in the river, we decided to invest in a swim spa. At 20 ft length not exactly suitable for swimming laps. They built these pools for Swimming Upstream, my preferred way to swim. One end of the pool comes equipped with one or more jets that are powerful enough to blow an old fart like me out at the other end.

That’s me doing the ‘Old Guys Backstroke’

For the old folks they also offer swimming on a sort of flexible fishing rod. You hook yourself through the lip and swim like hell to get away. Well, not quite. Instead of a hook there is a belt you strap around your waist and ‘Bob’s your uncle’. The other end is attached to a metal post, inserted into one end of the pool. That way, restrained from reaching the opposite end of the pool, you can swim for as long as you like; freestyle, breaststroke, or backstroke. I would not recommend butterfly as you would splash most of the water right over the sides. Now, please order my book, Swimming Upstream here.

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