THE EYE OF THE NOODLE

Aug 10, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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I sat in my hotel room at the Frigate Bay Hotel in St Kitt’s staring outside to get inspiration for a column when I saw these ladies in the pool with their noodles between their legs learning to swim. As the Italians might say, some of these ladies might have been pasta their prime, but they showed that they could still be floatatious and buoyant with the right stuff in the right place.

They could also be MOIST (Mostly Older Individuals Swimming Together). For the uninitiated, a “noodle” in swimming is not a synonym for brain (as in “use your noodle”) or being the spoiler of the party (wet noodle). It also has nothing to do with, and is much bigger than any of the known types of pasta including macaroni, cannelloni, vermicelli or sadly, rigour-Tony.

When I was growing up, the flotation device mostly used by learners was an armband which you inflated. Some learners and non-swimmers also used an inflatable ring worn around the middle. Now, a dense and flexible foam tube called a “noodle” ensures that you stay up.

You can hold it, bend it, wrap it around you and it works. Nothing to blow up. Something, however, you can twist and turn every which way. Yet, even the advent of the noodle, even if there was one that would take my increasing weight, has not tempted me into pooling my less than slender resources.

The reason is anatomical. In swimming terms I am a body mass-ochist. As a very brave soul at Boston University who once tried to teach me to swim said, “Tony, the world is divided into two types of people – those who float and those who sink. Unfortunately, you are a sinker.”

The mafia would not have to tie heavy weights to my ankle to keep this good man down – my body density does it for me. It was good information uttered with the utmost gravity but came too late in my life to be of any use. I had often wondered during my misspent youth why swimming, floating and messing around in the water came so easily to my friends, and even to my children, but not to me.

They could tread water and splash to their hearts’ content. Not me. I had to take and retain a deep breath; otherwise I would head right down to the bottom of the pool, pond, or worse, sea. In the water, I was adept at an improvised dog paddle. Later, as I grew up, I developed some facility with the breast stroke which I eventually gave up for freestyle and later, much later, because of my advancing age and girth, the crawl.

I have the occasional stroke of luck and genius, sometimes things even go swimmingly, but these days it is a challenge to keep my head above water. When I try to float with the financial tide, I discover to my chagrin that it is falling and going out, never coming in – much more outgo than income.

Speaking about the breast stroke, there was a competition to swim from St Kitt’s to Nevis doing only the breaststroke. Three young students from the “offshore” university entered the race. One was a brunette and the others were a redhead and a blonde. After approximately four hours, the brunette staggered up on the shore and was declared the fastest breaststroker. About two hours later, the redhead crawled up on the shore and was declared the second place finisher.

Nearly four hours after that, the blonde finally came ashore and promptly collapsed in front of the worried onlookers. When the reporters asked why it took her so long to complete the race, she replied, “I don’t want to sound like I’m a sore loser, but I think those two other girls were using their arms.”

When it comes to swimming, some people use their heads and others lose them. Not just because of sharks. There were two men in a life raft in the middle of the ocean. They had escaped from a shipwreck and were worried about whether they would be found and rescued. Then one of the men saw a fin in the water and started to panic, “Look! Look over there. There’s a shark, we’ll be eaten alive!”

His companion said comfortingly, “Don’t worry, the danger of sharks is overrated. Every year more people are killed by pigs than by sharks.” The first man replied, “I didn’t know pigs could swim.”

US President, John Quincy Adams, when enjoying his regular nude swim in the Potomac River in Washington D.C., had no problems with sharks or pigs. He suffered what could have been a right Royall cock-up. One morning a crusading newspaper journalist named Anne Royall, having tried for weeks to obtain an interview with the President, tracked him to the river bank, waited for him to enter the water, and promptly stationed herself upon his clothes.

Adams begged her to let him get dressed first. She threatened to scream so loudly that she would attract the attention of a group of nearby fishermen. Ms. Royall got her interview and refused to budge until the President answered all her questions.

People who didn’t like President Clinton, especially after the Monica Lewinsky encounter, said that he used to try to dive to the bottom of the Potomac because someone had said that deep down Clinton was a good man.

It is not just Presidents that have problems in the water. In the old days a stretch of river near Oxford University, called Parsons’ Pleasure, was set aside for men’s bathing and was off limits to women. One day, the famous Oxford wit and scholar, Maurice Bowra, was bathing in the buff with several other university Dons at Parsons’ Pleasure.

Suddenly, a boatload of women ignored the “Men Only” signs and rowed into view. A number of the swimmers ran hurriedly to the river bank, promptly grabbed towels and fashioned impromptu loincloths. Bowra was the only one who did not cover his lower regions. Instead, he elected to cover his head. “I believe, gentlemen,” he declared, “that I am recognised by my face.”

I suppose I am recognised as the chubby guy who does not venture too far into the water or too deep. Unfortunately, while standing in the surf at Maracas Beach in Trinidad many years ago, a wave hit me straight on my left ear and damaged the ear-drum. Now I swim to the beat of a different drummer.

While I enjoy divers’ pleasures, going underwater is not among them. I no longer fancy getting into the swim of things and even when drinking from the cup of life, I notice that while the chaser seems to have evaporated, the milk of human kindness is condensed but not yet curdled.

*Tony Deyal was last seen asking, “If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?”

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