[Fredslist] "I Beat Fred?!" (Photo at Bottom)

[Fred Klein]

OYSTER BAY SWIM: I BEAT FRED?!
     By Jim Periconi

Prelude:

For nearly the last year, I’ve good naturally endured Fred’s good-natured
jibes that followed my off-handed comment last fall, after hearing about
the one-mile swim he and Rick Raymond completed at Oyster Bay for the
American Red Cross while I was on vacation:  “Oh, yeah, maybe I’ll do that
next year with you guys.”

I tried to get out of it. Believe me. Developed excuses of varying
intensities.  “We just moved.” “Just had an operation, wife won’t let me.”
“Doctor won’t let me.” After looking at the website of the American Red
Cross of Nassau County. “Hey, how about that team thing,” figuring to
myself,  I can do a quarter-mile . . . probably, “isn’t THAT the Gotham
way?,” I asked slyly by e-mail.  This is the way, of course, that
co-religionists (and cowards) try to prevail in all sorts of discussions.
“No dice,” or something like that, replied our fearless, implacable leader.

In private and public conversations, Fred would of courses slip into all
sorts of comments about his regular, daily routine of swimming in his own
pool.  Terror began to mount in me. Then came the thought: “But I’ll never
hear the end of it if I don’t do this swim.”  Started swimming regularly at
Memorial Day, but only on weekends in Westchester, where we have a pool in
our condo complex.  Checked my time, thought “maybe I can do this in under
an hour.”  To Fred at the last Bandits meeting, “Fred, I’m going to do the
half-mile.”  He looked at me with intense pity in his eyes, “Do the mile.
Don’t worry,” he added magnanimously, “you could do it in about 40-45
minutes,” and just in case I didn’t get it, he added, “and I’ll be there
waiting for you,”   But he added gravely, “You might need a wet suit, yeah,
you need a wet suit.”  A wet suit!

Thank God for Rick! You could tell that for him, this was just fun.  Rick
is one of my best Gotham friends.   No competition here, just the fun of
accomplishing something noteworthy (and, let’s face it, staving off old
age).

A Day at the Races:

Night before: from the suggestion by the swim instructor at our pool, a
racer for the Pace U. swim team, I load up on whole wheat pasta the night
before.  Three bowls worth. With a ragù Alice made.  Lots of hot red
pepper, natch (hey, I’m Italian, what can I do?).  Terrible night’s sleep.
Alice looks worried.  “You don’t need to do this, you know, think about me
and [your daughter] Francesca,” with her best guilt-inducing wifely face. I
respond, only half-kiddingly: “Life insurance is paid up, right?”  Then, a
dramatic, last-ditch reason from Alice about our 27-year old boy, “Justin’s
getting married next Saturday – you don’t want to miss that, do you?”

Day of: I do everything that morning except prepare for the swim: read the
Sunday Times Book Review section, several stories on the 50th anniversary
of  the publication of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”  I think: “Yeah,
that’s where I should be – on the road, unavailable for this swim.”

Rick and I meet at Penn Station. “Rick, I’m only going to tell you this
once, and not in front of Fred – I’m scared.”  Rick said, “Don’t worry,
Fred’s nervous; so am I.”  Sure, sure, I say to myself, they’re going to
humor me.

We meet Fred in his car at Plandome Station.  Now’s he’s leader, coach and
friend. I relax.  As we get to the north shore, we see strong winds.  Fred
and Rick disagree about how the wind will affect us.  It’s supposed to be a
one-direction race – school buses take us to the start point, and we swim
back to the Town of Oyster Bay public beach, so it will be either great
(with the winds helping us along) or terrible, depending on the direction
in which we swim.

At the beach: rules have changed, a new way of doing it.  We will swim out
to a nearly half-mile red buoy mark, turn “left” for maybe a couple of
hundred yards to a second red buoy, then back to shore.  From the shore, it
looks manageable.

“Who you dedicating the race to?”, asks Fred.  I didn’t know that. I pick
my late Dad – I remember great photos of him swimming at one of the City’s
beaches, his million-dollar smile. Fred picks one of the great Gothamites,
Bob Formica, two years running.  We joke about who’s paying for lunch.
Fred says to me: “I pick up the tab if you complete the mile in 55 minutes
or less.”

Into the water, we start, but only after waiting for the pack to get ahead
of us. Good advice from Fred.  “This is NOT a race,” I keep saying to
myself, repeating what Fred said. The most valuable piece of advice, from
both Fred and Rick: “Stroke the water slowly, even hold back, that way you
can last the entire mile.”  And “switch from crawl to breast stroke, that’s
OK.”

I check my chronograph at the first buoy – only 10 minutes, 19 seconds. I
must be misreading it.  Second buoy: 13 minutes 39 seconds.  I think, “I’m
actually going to do this.”  I switch between crawl and breast stroke,
water coming into my mouth. I think a couple of times, “Where are Fred and
Rick?,” but I’m blind without my glasses.  I swim way wide, having
apparently forgotten to compensate for a strong current.  I hit an outside
metal buoy – everyone is to my left.  I’m losing time, but I see relatively
few swimmers ahead of me. I think to myself, “Fred and Rick must have
reached shore already.”  The closer I get, the more I launch into almost a
sprint-like crawl – nothing to lose, now.

I come out of the water, my chronograph reads “25: 29.”  I’m incredulous.
I walk up and down the shore, looking for our fearless leader and for Rick
to greet me, to tell me it’s OK, I made it.  Away from shore, eventually, I
find Roseann, the Gotham photographer who is holding Fred’s keys.  She
hasn’t seen him, either.  It can’t be, I think.  I see Rick, who has just
come out.  I estimate him at 29:14.  Then, I see Fred come out.  Mask
problems, he had to breast stroke all the way back. He also started
swimming a few seconds later, and he’s also (i.e., like Rick) 29:14.
Despite his earlier insistence that this was not a competition, Fred
insists that I say in this blog – which I’m assigned to write, as the new
guy in the race - who won. By nearly 4 minutes!

A hearty lunch followed in a luncheonette in nearby Bayville. Here’s the
beauty part: sure, we’d enjoyed our pre-swim conversation, good Gotham
bantering, in the long period between Fred’s pickup of us at about 9:55 and
the race start at about 12:30.  But conversation at lunch was on another
level: we all somehow got into talking about coming of age in the Vietnam
years, about our fathers, how we came to do the work we do. As much as we’d
known each other pretty well before hand, we became a band of brothers
then, we connected in a special way because of the swim we’d all done
together.  That conversation alone was worth all the anticipatory anxiety
of the better part of a year.

Fred tried hard to get us to the 2:40 train from Plandome, but we just
missed it.  Rick and I train it back, and top off a perfect day with a tall
Jamba Juice.  A perfect, unforgettable day. Thanks, guys.  Thanks, Gotham.
And thanks, Fred, you really are a great leader!

                                                Jim



(See attached file: IMG_7866.JPG)***This email is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named, and may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this email is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email in error,  please delete the email and notify the sender if we are sending you  materials in error.

Circular 230 Disclosure Notice. To insure compliance with requirements imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, we inform you that any tax advice that may be contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or  written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of  voiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or any state or local tax law to which a  governmental requirement similar to Circular 230 applies.***
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_7866.JPG
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 48912 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://www.gothamnetworking.com/pipermail/fredslist/attachments/20070820/e1a6d52f/IMG_7866.jpe