Our Daughter the Fish

Susan is our second daughter, forever the youngest of the two, even if anything to do with the word "young" almost seems inappropriate, since she and her sister Nancy are now both over 40. Yikes!

Both were competitive swimmers on swim teams; Susan did a year in college, but thought the coach was an A-hole so she stopped showing up. Nothing wrong with that.

Susan has stuck with swimming competitively a bit longer, joining Masters teams. She was a Jones Beach lifeguard—on the beach, one of the few females—with her friend Donna for over 5 years. She put up with all the make egos, and even enjoyed their bad jokes. She was on the same stand with the legend Reggie Jones, who was a lifeguard on the beach for over 40 years. 

When it comes along, she will swim in open water, otherwise known as the ocean, or Long Island Sound. You're not guaranteed a smooth surface in open water, like a pool. On Saturday she took part is a charity swim, Swim Across America for Cancer Research. She raised some money. Pictured above she is with the mascot of the swim, Dash the Dolphin.

Saturday's swim was a fun swim, picking your distance. Susan did two miles from Priybil beach in Glen Cove on Long Island's North Shore. Susan said the water was choppy, which added to the challenge. She was hardly alone. There were perhaps 150 other people choosing to swim various distances for to raise money for charity.

She was always a bit adventurous, and aside from swimming has done three marathons, San Diego, Chicago, and New York. Also many other road races.

She's even done some shorter triathlons, just not the Iron Man distances. She did one years ago at Montauk. My wife and I were there as her "handlers." The first part of any triathlon is the swim. I forget the opening distance, but it is a sight to see all these people in the water splashing with their windmill arm action, propelling themselves like torpedoes.

Not first, and certainly not last, I spotted Susan swimming toward the shore line finish and getting out of the water. On her arms were her bib number, marked with a marker of some kind I guessed. Watching her rise out the water and start trotting onto the beach like some human amphibian, it was like a  demonstration of Darwinian evolution with fish becoming humans. And her bib/arm number? My four digit ATM pin. I kid you not.

Saturday's race didn't have the same coincidence. Sunscreen has dulled the number, but it has nothing to do with my banking.

And how did the newest member of the family, grandson Matthew, take it all in? Here he's resting from all that viewing, cuddling with the race mascot. He's already been learning to swim. When your daughter is a fish, you can expect the offspring to be a fish as well. 

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