The Bright Red Swimmimg Cap
	There were a number of lakes around Tampa that had beaches for swimming. When we were growing up our favorites were Lake Ellen, Lake Carroll, and Colonial Beach. Lake Ellen was our very favorite and our family would drive there many times during the summer. The beach was always packed with swimmers. When I was about nine, and my brother, Andy, was eleven or twelve, we were at Lake Ellen almost every Saturday or Sunday. Other than swimming, one of my favorite things to do was stand on a little wooden bridge that crossed a shallow, ten ft. wide canal, and watch for baby turtles. After staring at the water for a while, inevitably, a turtle would come swimming along. I'd go down into the canal and slowly wade up to the turtle and catch it. Andy was the cool, adventurous one. All through his teens, even as far back as 12, onlookers were amazed at his diving skills. It would always make me feel proud. He excelled in every sport there was, bar none. Actually, he was the real artist in the family. I'm the only one that followed it professionally. There was a four-story-high tower at Lake Ellen. We would all swim out to the tower and climb it. The tower was 32 ft. high and it was quite an accomplishment for us to go off of the top. I say "go off of" because we would all jump, but Andy would dive. Perfect dives every time. I wasn't a nerd, that term wasn't around yet, but I would jump with my body vertical in the air and my arms down to my side. I would surprise people by how far I could swim underwater and how long I could stay under sometimes winning bets on the distance. Lake Ellen was so much fun and was probably the thing we looked forward to the most when summer came. My parents would bring lawn chairs and sit on the shore under the shade trees and watch us. I knew that my mother worried about me drowning. First, she was a worrier, and second, I was the youngest of six children. Even though at nine I thought I had everything under control, I was still only nine...and the "baby of the family." My mother would spend the whole day watching and craning her neck, to see where I was, trying to distinguish me from the hundreds of other kids swimming in the lake. I can't imagine how she had a good time. One day my mother and daddy were sitting on our front porch on Ellicott Street. I was in the living room, ear hustling through the screen door. My mother was saying, " I bought this piece of red cloth and I'm going to take some elastic and make a sort of shower cap for Lynn to wear when he's swimming, so I can see where he is." Oh my God! She wouldn't do that! She couldn't! I turned and put my back against the wall. It was so bizarre that my mind couldn't think of how to deal with it. So I ran out the back door and thought the whole thing would just go away like a bad dream. At 6:00 the seven of us all came in for supper. My oldest brother, Sonny, was on his own by then. There on the corner of the table was the cap. It was the brightest red imaginable and it was awful. Mother said, "Lynn, I made something for you." She was so pleased with it. It was obvious that the humiliation I'd feel by wearing that thing had completely eluded her. Andy didn't even know what to say. Well, I did. "I'm not going to wear that." "Yes you are." "Oh no I'm not." "Then you're not going to Lake Ellen." "All right, I won't!" It killed me to say that, but I was dead serious. There was no way I was going to wear that thing. It could have been used as a punishment under other circumstances. I knew it was coming from love, I still do, but it didn't matter. I could picture being pummeled by a crowd of other boys and being chased down the beach. Many years after that my friend Sharon, who I hadn't met yet, used to say, "If you're ever being chased by an angry mob, just stay way out in front and pretend it's a parade." I could picture a family coming to the beach and saying, "What's this? It looks like someone brought a turkey to cook at the beach and it fell in the sand before they had a chance to. But why is it wearing a bathing suit and that stupid looking red shower cap?" And it would've been me. Right at that time my brother, Joe Pat, spoke up and said, "Mother, you can't have him wear that to the lake. It would be like wearing a sign asking for trouble." And just like that, the subject was closed and never brought up again. Joe Pat was 18 when I was born so we never spent a lot of time together like I did with our oldest brother. Actually, Joe Pat was known for having a gruff exterior. I wasn't expecting this show of compassion on my behalf. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover. I don't know why nobody thought of buying me a red baseball cap. I think that would've been all right. Lash Out Loud Side Note: The word "nerd" was coined by college students, the cool, party crowd. It referred to students who stayed in and studied or just led a quieter lifestyle. It was originally "knurd," which was the opposite of drunk (drunk spelled backwards.) Soon the k was dropped and eventually the spelling became nerd. Now that I think about it, I guess I was a nerd after all.