Monday Memories—Toasts and Pools

Ande

Toasts were used to keep men from poisoning each other—by tapping the glasses, a little of your drink spilled into mine and a little of mine spilled into yours and so if I tried to poison you it killed me too. After men quit trying to poison each other, toasts became a way to celebrate and build goodwill.

Our family likes to make toasts. It’s a tradition we adopted after attending our first military ball and we do it often. Sometimes we clink bottles of pop and other times we tap goblets of sparkling cider. A few weeks ago when we were visiting Ray and Cali over Mother’s Day we toasted mothers.

Ray’s mother, Mary, was a collegiate diver and swimmer and he attributed his love of sailing and diving to her teaching him how to swim and love the water. “To mothers who teach their children.” Clink.

Ande said her memory was also of the water and me teaching her how to swim. When the kids were little we lived two miles from a warm water, natural springs swimming pool and went swimming several times a week during the summer. It was a beautiful swimming pool isolated twenty five miles from town and surrounded by a park of cotton wood trees. We hated to leave it when we moved. It was a great place to teach kids to swim. I would tread water for an hour or so while the kids jumped from the diving board into the warm water. When they surfaced I would give them a big shove to the ladder at the side of the pool calling out “Swim! Swim! Swim!” as they paddled their little arms and legs. One of Ande’s favorite memories was hanging on to me in the deep end. “To happy memories.” Clink.

When Ande told her memory I asked, “Do you remember when you were about four or five and you were pretending you were a reporter and interviewing the people in the pool? You swam over to me and pretending to have a microphone asked, ‘Tell me, ma’am, what does it feel like to be wearing the ugliest swimming suit in the pool?’ and then turned the mic so I could answer.”

Of course she didn’t remember that. “To funny memories. . . and ugly swimming suits.” Clink.