The first thing they did at the city pool was introduce us to the deep end. I decided that the worst thing that could happen was that I could die, but I didn’t think that was very likely, so I just got over myself and went in the deep end. My brother liked to swim along the bottom of the 12 foot water. I wasn’t going there, but I could at least jump in the water and swim along the surface.

The miracle was actually swimming a whole length of the pool without stopping to walk, like I’d done at Girl Scout camp. In fact, that one skill—not touching the bottom of the pool—was what separated the two of us who passed from the rest of the class. Only two of us—both black—received our advanced beginner certificates that summer, but all of us could now swim.

My brother and I surprised our parents that summer on vacation. They took us to Mexico, and during a sight-seeing cruise, the boat stopped a few yards from the shore. We were given the choice between swimming to shore for lunch and waiting for a small rowboat to take us ashore. While our parents waited for the rowboat, my brother and I jumped overboard and started swimming shoreward. My mother shrieked. Neither she nor my father could swim well enough to go after us. A man on the boat offered to swim after us to make sure we were ok. I would stop swimming every so often to check how deep the water was. My brother talked about fighting a piranha on the way to shore, but I didn’t believe him. We made it! It was like a curse had been lifted. Now we could swim, and we could really enjoy life!