Does anyone remember swimming from back in the 60's or 50's.
For laughs here are some of my memories.
In the 1960's lap lanes if they were put in a pool were scorned. Most pools were open and filled with splashers.Toy submarines were big People who were older then the swim teams (young people) who actually wanted to swim laps were .."oddballs" "they were "exercise freaks". All the pools I went to were outdoors. On labor day all swimming stopped..that was it. Most of us girls sat by the pool lounging ,oiling and burning and checking to see who was "seeing us". Then if we went in it was only for a few minutes to cool off. The flower swim caps were coolest but only if the pool required caps other wise most of us perfered to swim capless. If a cap had a strap most girls pulled it off right away and "lost it" We really did not care if the caps kept out water as we would swim heads up "Hollywood Style".Unless we had just had our hair done a couple days before then we would want to stay dry but the best time to swim was before a trip to the beauty shop.Every bodys secret wish was to sneak in late at night to skinny dip. Guys liked goofy swimming masks and goggles and fins so they would be scary looking and they were goofy for sure! I remember trying one swim mask that had two snorkles sticking out curved on the end with the ping pong balls in the cages ,it covered your whole face and when the balls stuck you could not breath .. death trap swim mask I called it..Of course liability lawyers had not been invented yet. We all awaited the mid summer pool partys with the big bar-b-cues and luau partys .We bought all our summer pool items at the big Memorial day drug store sales were we could get things like towels,suntan oil, zorris (flipflops)and two swim caps for the summer before the big advertised "Playtex Swim Cap Riot Sales" ended. And of course we played Marco-Polo on and on just as kids do today.
Originally posted by bjk
Nutrition before a meet event was eating jello or a sugar daddy candy bar.
Do you mean "made" jello, or just the powder itself? I remember AAU meets in southwest PA, powering up on the flavored-sugar. (Most of the things I ate then, would probably make me sick now.:) )
I wonder if the polarization - and vitriolic rage - expressed by some of the folks here - is related in any way to the seemingly similar state of politics?
Wouldn't it be nice if all pools were like the one I go to now... It has three lanes, taking half the pool, and the other half is for casual swimming.
Everyone seems to get along fine, and it's so nice not hearing anybody calling people names.
Wouldn't it be nice if accomodations were made for both serious and recreational swimmers?
I swam in the late 50's and early 60's in northeastern Ohio. I swam AAu in the winter and Country Club leagues in the summer. I couldn't swim for my high school because there wasn't a team for girls! Our team wore nylon tank suits and to keep the shoulder straps up we tied them with a shoestring. All of the girls were embarassed about thier tank suits and usually wore a coverup or towel to hide them.
Nutrition before a meet event was eating jello or a sugar daddy candy bar.
There were a lot of pools built in the 60's because the polio epidemics were over. In the 50's it was suspected that poiio was contracted at crowded swimming pools so not many pools were built.
