Goonie Caps

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with friends (Robert and Julia) who had invited me to their home for a game of Scrabble, dinner and a movie (DVD).

Julia is of Bangladeshi descent, and I'd told to her previously that I owned a VHS video of The Concert for Bangla Desh – something she said she'd like to see – so I brought that with me as well as my newly-purchased, still-wrapped boxed set of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs.

The dinner, a traditional Banglasdeshi cooked meal of chicken, beef, lentls and rice (with some mixed veggies and salad) was marvelous, and – as expected – I crushed the both of them in Scrabble. My Scrabble record remains unblemished, although I had a momentary concern when – feeling somewhat sorry for Robert's bad luck with words on the day – Julia and I agreed to allow "hobocrib" (yes, my left eyebrow raised in bemused wonder about the word!), a word that meant a 51-point increase in Robert's score. Julia and I agreed that it was more important to allow Robert his word since he'd had such a rough time, but I was secretly worried that it was just a bit too much charity on my part. I would have hated to have had my "Lifetime - 0" record shattered by "hobocrib", for crying out loud.

Thankfully, the word left him forty or so points shy of my winning score, although it meant bringing him up to a tie with Julia.

But wait... this was supposed to be about goonie caps.

During a scene in Blue, the ever-stunning, ever-talented Juliet Binoche dives into a swimming pool and swims a lap across the width of the pool – not its length.

At that moment, it flashed me back to something I haven't thought about in a long, long time...

When I was in grade school, I spent a great deal of time at the Boys Club (now Boys and Girls Club) in East Toledo. They had a pool, game rooms (I played many a game of pool), craft rooms and television. It was a really great place to hang out with friends and keep out of trouble. I think that my mom still owns one of the ceramic pieces (an exotic bird of some type) I'd painted and shellacked for her. I was a pretty meticulous painter, and I was quite proud that my eye for color was better than most kids ("no brag, just fact"), and that my finished pieces were worthy of something better than being put away as mementos. My mom actually hung them in the house in not-so-obscure places.

Oh, yeah... goonie caps!

The rule of the pool was that until a kid had been able to prove his ability to swim, he had to wear a bathing cap – swimming cap, if you prefer. We knew them as "goonie caps" – there was no more appropriate term for them as far as a ten- to twelve-year-old was concerned. They were named precisely for the way we looked while wearing them.

Of course, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for their use – they made the jobs of the lifeguards that much easier. They allowed the guards to more easily keep an eye on those who shouldn't be near the deep end of the pool.

A ten-year-old knows nothing of reason, however, and I knew how to swim (dammit!) – I wasn't about to wear one of those gawdawful goonie caps! Ugh!

Every day, just before the pool was made available for open swimming, several lifeguards would loosely organize swimming tests for those kids who wanted to shun the stigmatic, reputation-busting, humiliating goonie caps. We would line up at poolside at about the spot where the pool began its severe slope to very-deepness.

The test was simple: dive in and swim the entire width of the pool underwater.

Fifty, sixty feet... right? Piece of cake!

Now, you should know that I was a regular at the Boys Club. The management knew me well, my brother Mike and his friends all hung out there – they knew me... Anyone who spent a lot of time there knew me and surely had seen me swimming. I was as much of a fish as any kid my age and swimming came as natural as breathing at that point in my life.

As I recall that day now, my brother was in attendance. A number of us lined up on the entrance side of the pool, near the lifeguard chair, and several older kids and lifeguards were on the opposite side of the pool to observe and go into action if needed.

I had swum the width of the pool many times previously (one doesn't take a test like this without knowing what the results are going to be), so as far as I was concerned it was all academic; a mere formality. I was thirty or so seconds away from a goonie-less life at the Boys Club – an almost Hilaryan feat for my age. And I didn't need no sherpa!

I did, however, need the help of a lifeguard (or my brother – I can't recall which) with a couple of feet to go.

In fact, I had traveled more distance than was required of me to complete the test successfully. The problem I had was that I made the attempt with my eyes closed and with about ten feet to go to the other side of the pool, I made a severe left turn that took me into water that was deeper than I was tall. My inner measuring stick – which many previous laps across the pool had calibrated – told me I was at pool's edge and that I could stop swimming, reach out and grab the concrete.

It wasn't there.

Nor was the bottom of the pool where I expected it to be.

I began gasping for air and swallowing water as I went down, completely bewildered by what was happening. "I'm not in the deep end, for crying out loud... what the hell (I probably didn't say "hell" at that time, actually) is going on?!?" Okay, so maybe "Help!" was more what I was thinking, or more likely "HE-E-E-E-ELP!" Or maybe it was "OhmuhgawdImgonnadi-i-i-i-i-e!"

Lots of laughter welcomed my ascent from the pool. The thought of having to put the goonie cap on was, of course, more devastating to think about and I no doubt was on the verge of tears.

For some reason, however, I was deemed worthy of removing the goonie cap from my swimming attire. I was free! Free to use the diving board; free to swim in the deep end. I had reached what amounted to swimming adulthood.

"I'm the king of the wo-o-o-o-o-o-r-r-r-l-l-d!"

Gawd! Did I just say that?!?