Above Average

I’ve always been above average. My brother Larry was considered the genius. Mother said his IQ was so high they didn’t really have a number for it. He got F’s and A’s in school, depending on if he was interested in the subject or not. He almost completed his PhD, but got Barbara pregnant and had to quit school and raise a family. He got a job with a company for awhile, but it didn’t work out for some reason. Then he went out on his own as a consultant for most of his career, and only in the last few years has he had a real job with a real salary. My youngest brother, David, was considered the slow one, always goofing off and never taking things too seriously. Mother got him a tutor in 8th grade because he was falling behind. The tutor taught him that you had to study. He finally got it. He is now a Medical Doctor.

In school I did really well, getting mostly A’s, unlike my brothers. I was obedient and liked to play outdoors. I was once the fastest runner in the neighborhood. I could swing on the swings almost all the way around. I could hang on the bars by my heels, and could go the whole way there and back swinging like a monkey on the ladder gym. I was able to teach myself how to ice skate backwards, to do a twirl or two, and lift one leg backwards with my arms out to the side.

Mother took us to swimming lessons, first at the Jewish Center, then in the summer to the Portage Country club where my Grandparents were members. You could have a grandchild membership in the summers. I learned how to swim all the strokes and soon became a Life Guard. Then I took the class to become a Water Safety Instructor. In the summer I was on the diving team and learned the back dive, the front pike, the back pike, and the swan dive. I could never do any somersaults, however. I usually came in third in the diving contests. I was on the swim team and raced against other swim clubs. My best stroke was the breast stroke. I could do the crawl and the butterfly, the side stroke and the back stroke, but wasn’t that fast. We had a lot of fun competing, however.

In high school I was in a lot of activities, I don’t remember exactly what, like the future nurses or the biology club or something. I was in the newspaper once as a “teen of the day” which listed all my accomplishments. But in applying for college, with my above average grades and activities, I was only accepted to one school and it was my last choice. I was on the waiting list for Allegheny College. My Grandparents knew someone on the Board of Directors and talked to them and suddenly I was admitted, albeit late, so I stayed in another dorm than most of the Freshmen. The whole college process was a blur to me. It seemed like it I had nothing to do with it. My Mother picked out the colleges and helped me fill out the forms. We went to see Allegheny but not the other schools, and I don’t even remember which ones they were. For some reason I did not apply to Univ of Akron, where her Grandfather had been President of the original Buchtel College. There is an oil painting of him in the hallway of that old building on campus.

I also took water ballet and loved that. We had a couple water ballet shows a year. I could do all the basic stuff, and am really good at sculling still.

I was a lifeguard in the summers during high school and college at various country clubs and such. I also taught swimming classes. The summer after my third year at Allegheny, before I began my year of Medical Technology Internship, I got a job as a camp counselor at this fancy camp in Michigan on Torch Lake. There was a girl’s camp and a boy’s camp. They were loosely connected by a long trail. We had socials on the weekends, but everything else was separate. I was in charge of the Waterfront. I taught swimming, diving, water ballet, and was the lifeguard for open swim. It was a pretty big job. We had a water show at the end of each 4 week session with water ballet and diving and races and such.

In college I took normal classes and ended up with a 2.9 GPA. I got a D in Chemistry, but I loved it. The Professor encouraged me to continue and even major in it for some reason. I majored in Biology. My advisor was Dr. Bugbee! The Chemistry Professor was Dr. Pugh! We always concocted smelly compounds in our labs. Science labs took up a lot of time, but I still was in a modern dance club and finally joined the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. I was the Historian. When we went back for the 40th reunion, we went to the sorority rooms, the same ones we always had at the top of Brooks Hall, and my scrap book from our years there was still there. It wasn’t so badly done, either.

I don’t remember much of the year long Medical Technology Internship except a few things. We got paid! $50 a month. We didn’t have to pay tuition.

When the boys were young, they joined the West High swim club, the Aquanauts. It was a non-profit swim club that competed with other clubs throughout the area and the state not connected with the schools. We had a coach we hired. Practice was almost every day of the week, with frequent swim meets. As a parent, we came to the meetings, and I soon became the President of the Club. This required me to go to the area wide meetings that organized meets and such. I took the test and became an official time keeper, and then became a race director. I was qualified to be in charge of all the timekeepers. I was once the starter, a timekeeper, and a meet director. I mostly ended up running the meets. All the officials were parents. Later we had a state wide meet, one of two or three a year and I volunteered to be in charge. It was held at Bartlett pool, the only 50 meter official pool in the state. I had to arrange for housing for the out of town swimmers, be in charge of all the officials and meet directors, arrange for the concession stands, the locker rooms, the ticket sales, security, etc. It was quite a big undertaking. I did this only one time.
10/20/09