What is it with old people and the desire to laugh loudly at death, often while wearing an old bathing suit and a red swimcap with a strap under the chin? Old people love the water. This may be because the weightless-ness of one's body in the water makes it easier for a slower moving person to move around and exercise, which is something we all need to do, regardless of age. And personally I think the oldtimers enjoy being almost naked in public, a place where the last thing our collective mind can handle is a wrinkly person with a low cut bathing suit laughing heartily (making that old cleavage jingle) at our narrow-minded ideas about who gets to parade about in their underwear and who doesn't.

Death, old people (laughing) and water. What exactly do they have in common? Aquatic park in San Francisco, for one. As you may or may not know, there are two swimmingclubs stationed at a Northern-ly point on San Francisco's coast. They are both old. They are both driven by commraderie and a certain thirst for a low level kind of danger. They both attract wackos who apparently have been born with a renegade gene that allows them to submerse themselves into water that is almost always under 60 degrees. For the last two weeks I have been taking the plunge (literally) on Sundays with these crazy people (mostly with the South End Rowing club, due to time contraints and no actual preference) and this is what I have found. Commraderie. Low level danger. Thermal bathing caps (I have one!). Old people.

Yes, the old people are prolific. And just why is this seeming so very important to me? Because I am having a hard time dealing with the fact that I can not keep up with the over 60 set. Yes, these ladies and gentlemen are kicking my butt with the swimming and the good attitude and in general perpared-ness overall. An example:

Picture me standing around on a lovely little bit of old fashioned beach shore. There are two old wooden docks, some sort of beach grass growing on the edges. The water laps rather gently at the shore. I am wearing my friend Clare's cast off bathing suit. It's a black speedo...kind of stretched out. At this point I still don't have a bathing cap, so I have some pig tails and a pair of new goggles. I can't really see without my glasses so I am squinting. As I am heading toward the edge of the water, one of the swimming clubs is just finishing up a group swim, so I am being passed by a herd of frosty red bodies making a beeline for the famed saunas of both the Dolphin and South End Rowing Clubs . There are still a whole bunch of people in the water so I feel comfortable about wading in and going for a swim.

People, it feels cold. So cold it hurts. But I think that if all these people around me are swimming about in this water then I, too can do this. I ignore all of my instincts, both primal and logical and just....dive in.

The cold seems to surround my chest and my back. Something forces me to gasp and breath in. As I am still underwater I inhale a substance that is distinctly not air. It is water. Cold, cold salty water from the bay fills my lungs as my arms and legs just stop moving. I guess this is my low level dance with danger and death, because for some reason, even though I think that I am in water that is over my head, I try to stand up. I do. I am only in water about four and a half feet deep. When my head finally gets all the way out of the water, I gasp again and get a mouthful of air. I then cough and spit out a whole bunch of water just as some septagenariun casually motors past, powered only by her elegant kicking feet, her head kept warm by a lovely red thermal swimming cap. The coughing has warmed me up. Death, what a tease!

Now that I can use my arms and legs, I decide to go for a swim. Gracefully I push off from the sandy beach bottom and try to swim. I used to be a fantastic swimmer. I swam literally almost everyday from the first day of fifth grade until well after graduation from highschool. And not only was I just going for a casual swim at 6 in the morning before school started on a Wednesday, I was swimming with a crazy man for a swim coach who was still angry years later that the U.S. boycotted the Olympics that were being held in the Soviet Union....I forget which year that was. I don't think I have to tell you that this angry, crazy man swam the crap out of us. So I was surprised when all I could force myself to do was some sort of half-assed dog paddle with a lot of grunting and gasping.

I made it past the docks, turned left, swam past a guy in a rowboat who eyed my swimming abilities with concern and then decides to laugh at me instead. Thanks rowboat guy. I paddled on. Out in the water, it was lovely and quiet. All I could hear was then of water lapping and wind blowing. The bay was a color close to a deep jade. After I pass the second buoy I suddenly remember that I have to swim back as well. Better not waste all of my energy going forward when, in at least this circumstance, going backward is just as important as well.

So I turn around. The current is going against me and that is a surprise. I just hadn't thought about the current very much. I am tired, cold and a wee bit embarassed by the finesse of my swimming. I am passed by another older person and a mom with her 10 year old son, just swimming around like nobody's business while I labored and labored to get back around the docks. I float in with the tide for the last fifteen feet or so. As I climb out of the Bay I am panting like I just swam great distances. I think in reality I made it about a quarter of a mile.

In the locker room I realize that I have forgotten my brush, my soap and my shampoo. I spend some non-soapy time standing under the hot water and then stagger into the sauna. An older lady is busy oiling up her body and wringing out her swimsuit at the same time. She lets me borow some shampoo and gives me one of her extra thermal caps. She congratulates me for my first swim. What with her ability to swim a couple of miles in frezzing cold water, coupled with her ability to congratulate strangers AND hand out free stuff while naked makes me envy this woman. Hopefully, when we meet again, I will have grown an extra layer of blubber to protect me from the cold and perhaps also an extra layer of memory that will allow me to remember such things as swimming cap! And shampoo.