Inner Tube
By: susan peterson stamis
Tags: bathing cap, dog paddle, foreign service, guatemala, inflatable vinyl, inner tube, mask, olympic champion, outdoors, rubber, snorkel, state department, swimming pool, travel
Category: Uncategorized
Neither my mother nor my father could swim much, but next to my father, my mother was an Olympic champion. Mom’s craned-neck-and-head-above-the-water side-winding dog paddle kept her weekly-styled hair from getting wet while she cruised around the pool sporting her jaunty rubber bathing cap adorned with rubber flowers. But Dad couldn’t swim a stroke and he developed a slapping splashing dog paddle to nowhere with his toes firmly attached to the bottom of the shallow end.
Nowadays, brightly colored inflatable green crocodiles, purple octopuses, neon pool noodles and polka-dotted arm floaties are created to keep us non-swimmers afloat while we frolic in the water. But back then, the simple, no-nonsense inner tube was serious business and Dad was an inner tube Jedi.
The tube needed to be wet down and cooled off in the swimming pool before it could be climbed into, because it was heavy and black, got hotter than blazes sitting in the sun and reeked of burning rubber. Dad would push the steaming stinking inner tube into the water, hold his breath and tiptoe wincing and shivering down the slippery steps to get himself loaded in and stabilized. Then, not having moved more than about a foot from the edge, he would he row himself over in one short stroke to haul me in for a thrilling ride around the pool.
In Guatemala, I badgered my parents into sending me for swimming lessons at a local pool. I distinctly remember hating every second of the experience because the pool and the water were green and slimy and loaded with lots and lots of splashing, spitting people. I survived two or three lessons and have since fended for myself. I can tread water endlessly in a buoyant waveless sea and I can swim back and forth with my face in the water provided I’m wearing a mask and snorkel.
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About Me
My father was a Consular Officer in the United States Foreign Service. He was first stationed in post World War II Berlin, where I was born in 1950. Subsequently, we lived in the Philippines; Jamaica; Guatemala; Washington, DC; Greece; Ceylon and Mexico; visiting many places in between. I was reared by my parents and nurtured by the various amahs, nannies, and housemaids who, every two years or so, entered and exited my little life.
I was educated in American Schools in “foreign lands,” but the most fascinating classrooms were the exotic locales where we lived, and the most inspiring teachers were the colorful people of those exotic and ancient cultures.
The bi-annual “home leaves” which my family spent at my grandparents’ homes in Los Angeles, California provided a sense of constancy to our nomadic lifestyle. My many aunts, uncles and cousins lived there and I eagerly looked forward to those vacations. We were 1st and 2nd generation Greek Americans (all 4 of my grandparents had immigrated at the turn of the century), and thus had foreignness stamped onto us even though we were Americans.
Two of my father’s siblings were also in the diplomatic service, and we world-traveling cousins were a source of endless curiosity to our domestic counterparts when we came home speaking English with unusual accents, reducing the statesiders to hysterics.With his various cameras, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, 16 millimeter, Super 8 and Polaroid, my father rarely lost an opportunity to document the events unfolding around us. After years of waiting patiently in boxes under the stairs, these photographic records are now fulfilling their purpose as mnemonic retrievals of my little life.
Mnemonic Retrievals 
That is a nice memory. Love your ‘About Me’ – what an interesting and exciting life! The Foreign Service is my dream job…