“So they train their whole lives just so they can train for three years just so they can swim for two minutes, and the majority of the people who get to swim for two minutes will be deemed failures? This, my dear, is where depression comes from.”
“Wait, Alison Schmidt is six-foot-one?”
“I see we’re taking different revelations from the Olympics.”
“Six-foot-one?”
“It’s fine, Lita. I’m sure you could take her in judo.”
“I’m six-foot-one!”
“Sure, but you have more practice at judo.”
“That’s too tall to swim.”
“According to whom? Not the Olympic committee.”
“According to my swim coach who said you had to be slim and elegant!”
“You should take him at judo.”
“Wait, what did the guy say? Missy Franklin’s wingspan is wider than she is tall?”
“Is that rare?”
“Yes. Measure my arms.”
“Can’t I measure something else?”
“You’re never touching anything else if you don’t measure them right now.”
“What the lady wants, the lady gets. You hold this end of the measure, though. We’re not all giants like you… swimmers.”
“I can’t believe this! All I wanted to do when I was a kid was swim. You couldn’t get me out of the water.”
“Certainly your pipsqueak dad couldn’t.”
“Dad. All he wanted me to do was bake.”
“You’re an awesome cook! It’s why I’m wider than I am tall. But not so much wingspan.”
“So? How wide is it?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Say it.”
“This feels too much like when Jack Nicholson asks the surgeon for the mirror.”
“God damn it!”
“Seventy-four-ish. That’s, you know. That’s close to your height.”
“I could have been an Olympian!”
“What if they made an Olympic event for cakes? You could get the Gold Medal for flour. Well, I guess that’s already a thing, but—”
“Dad paid off that coach. I know it.”
“Maybe they were just dumb back then. I’m pretty sure when you were eleven, they still thought egg yellows were good for you.”
“If he was alive, I’d set his toupee on fire.”
“You could try out now.”
“I can’t try out now! These girls are, like, sixteen. That’s half… half my…”
“Please don’t give me that look like I’m supposed to finish your sentence. If I do, you’ll hurt me.”
“I had so much fun swimming. I wanted to do it more than anything, it was like flying in warm air. Do you even know how much I loved it?”
“No, because every time I go near water it’s for hydrotherapy. My leg makes the dream of the 200-meter backstroke a little harder to fathom.”
“I… hey, I didn’t… I just didn’t realize how much I missed it.”
“There’s a pool at the center. I think it’s ten bucks to mess around until closing time, if you want to do more than miss it.”
“You think?”
“I think ten dollars less sweets for me would do us both some good.”
As a person who emulates the Great White Whale often I loved this. Mega thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite a blubbery swimmer myself, but boy do I miss sloshing around.
DeleteFunny how arbitrary some of the rules are, about what height or build you must be to do a certain sport, never mind whether or not you're actually any good at it or not.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone weigh your actual talent or ability in determining your career? Posh!
DeleteFunny, I said to my boys only this week that anyone who failed to make the height measure they have outside rollercoaster rides, shouldn't be allowed to compete in the Olympics. it can't be long before we have an ultrasound scan of a fetus doing cartwheels in utero counting for their gymnastic routine
ReplyDeletemarc nash
I'd imagine the jockeys would be sour if you banned all but the tall!
DeleteLove that closing line! I can relate.
ReplyDeleteI almost wish I couldn't relate. Despite a strenuous week, all that travel-eating seems to have ruined me.
Delete“So they train their whole lives just so they can train for three years just so they can swim for two minutes, and the majority of the people who get to swim for two minutes will be deemed failures? This, my dear, is where depression comes from.”
ReplyDeleteThis pretty sums up my feelings on the whole thing. Tough Schmidt, at least, will probably return. But those poor gymnists are gonnabe dumped like yesterday's hot cakes and replaced with a new batch of 12 year olds the second they hit state side and I can't imagine that not leading a whole variety of psychiatric disorders...
As I understood it the Magnificent Five are some kind of godsend to the sport. Do they look like they lack lasting power?
DeleteDefinitely a great first line. So true. And yet she still wants to be a Olympian? Crazy characters highlighting crazy rules in a crazy culture. Way to go, John.
ReplyDeleteWith all the glamour around those metals, I'd wager quite a few people envy them!
DeleteJohn, I love what you can do, how much you can convey, with all dialogue. Superb!
ReplyDeleteThanks Deanna! It was a fun experiment as I rode all the trains back toward home. Glad people got a kick out of it.
DeleteI love these all diaologue pieces. The wandering/dual conversation is awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks Danni! Do other people feel this way? Is there a desire for more all-dialoguers?
DeleteAnother great dialog piece. Funny how we care so much about some things for about two weeks every four years that we don't even think about the rest of the time.
ReplyDeleteAll sorts of holidays and events do this to people. Even to me, on rare occasions.
DeleteSigh... yeah, coaches/trainers at the entry levels have all sorts of weird ideas. I stopped growing at 175cm 5'9" when I was 12. I had more than one experienced gymnast tell me it was physically impossible for me to do a cartwheel. And, of course, I could. I could even do one-handed ones. Olympic-style tumbling? Nah. But why set the bar that high just for cartwheels?
ReplyDeleteIf the points in the dialogue about swimming came from a real source, they must have been talking about acrobatic diving or synchronised swimming or something. For racing height is an advantage because you can reach out and touch the wall faster :-).
Nice one!
The coach business about tall people being bad for competitive swimming came from my own childhood, quite possibly misremembered, but of a swimming teacher at camp who said only short, lithe people could compete at a professional level in such swimming. It was actually a form of praise for me, since I was a runt. I'm sorry your exposure to gymnasts was so stifling! It seems like there's always someone who wants to tell you what you can't do, whether or not you can.
DeleteExcellent and it does address the limitations in activities such as these. Good thing jockey wasn't on the list.
ReplyDeleteA 6'1" jockey might have a harder time, it's true.
DeleteClever writing John.
ReplyDeleteWhilst seeing the humour running through this, I also can see the truth in the words too.
Brilliant way to sum up the Olympics John! Absolutely loved the pace of the story, the humor, and as Steve said, the glimpsing truth in your words.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a swimmer myself; I easily panic. And besides I'm 5'3 heh :-)
I often wonder how Olympians deal with the anticipation of a 2 minute activity after training for 4 years. Fun piece, John. Question: what measure is 62ish? If inches, wouldn't that make her wingspan unusually undersized for someone 6'1" tall?
ReplyDeleteQuite correct, Richard, and an embarrassing error for me. Hit '6' when I meant '7' - 62 inches wouldn't even make sense for someone that tall. Thanks for pointing it out.
DeleteThat was really funny, great dialogue John.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because it's true. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of being deemed failures, our Olympians (mainly the swimmers) have been getting a hammering here in the media for our lack of gold medals.
Enjoyed this a lot John. My dad was like this about the 100m sprint, saying if he carried on with his training he would have done well. I most probably wouldn't have been born if he had. Life is full of mixed blessings :P.
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