Mrs. Linklater Sinks to Swimming

AS THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF HER JOURNAL NEARS [MARCH 17TH -- DID YOU WRITE IT DOWN?], MRS. LINKLATER POSTS YET ANOTHER OLD ENTRY.  DON'T YOU JUST LOVE HER LITTLE ANSWER FOLLOWED BY THE QUESTION AFFECTATION?  YEAH.  ME, NEITHER.

Answer of the evening: Sink.  Question of the evening: What will Mrs. Linklater do when she finally dives into the pool to start swimming laps?



Swimming is the only sport Mrs. Linklater has left. All the other ones she used to enjoy require more working body parts. The excellent thing about swimming is that you don't need high quality joints and cartilage to get from one end of a pool to the other.

But Mrs. Linklater already misses her other sports -- the uniforms, the spandex pants, the padded shorts, the kaleidoscope colored shirts, the high socks, the low socks, the different shoes for tennis, softball, cycling, volleyball, bowling, jogging, hiking, and cross training, along with the helmets, hats, headbands, wristbands, kneepads, ankle braces, rackets, bats, balls and the bags that carried them,

Now she's only got swimming.  No shoes.  No socks. No wristbands. No offense to swimming, but it isn't a costume sport.  With tons of gear and your name embroidered all over the back. At least that's what Mrs. Linklater thought until she went to a store devoted to nothing but stuff for swimming.

A store devoted to everything you need for one sport is not unusual in her town. This is hallowed ground for athletes. Gale Sayers, the great Bears running back lives here. Jim McMahon, the great Bears quarterback lives here. too. Doug Collins, the emotional Bulls, Pistons, and Wizards coach and calmer NBA commentator lived here. Most of the other Chicago pros aren't more than a suburb or two away.

Mrs. Linklater's suburb has not one, but two swimming complexes. That's not counting the high school pool, the YMCA pool, the health club pools and the pools at the private country clubs. There are three racket clubs with eight to ten courts each in this town of 35,000 and three more tennis clubs within three miles. And that's not including all the public tennis courts. There is a huge public golf course with a super driving range. The Bulls practice facility is in the next town, so there are also a boatload of indoor and outdoor basketball courts, too.

But all those facilities are not what really sets Mrs. Linklater's town apart athletically. You knowyou're in a jocktown when you've got a velodrome for short track bicycle racing. And a curling facility. Does your town have a velodrome or a curling facility?  Mrs. Linklater thinks not. This place rocks for world class jocks. If there's a sport, from speedskating to platform tennis, there's a team playing it here.

So it's only right that a town like this would have a store devoted to nothing but swim stuff. And, luckily for Mrs. Linklater, it turns out that swimming has lots of stuff she can wear besides a suit. She can purchase goggles to prevent her eyes from turning green, a snorkel so she won't have to turn her head to breathe and risk inhaling green water, a cap to prevent her bleached blond hair from turning green, and fins -- bigger than any sport shoes she's ever owned.

Mrs. Linklater chose a pair of green fins to match the two green Speedos she bought. Go with the flow, don't you know. She would have purchased nose plugs, ear plugs, a watch and a kick board, but it would have taken her all day just to put everything on.

Too bad you can't be there at the pool for her unveiling today. The first time Mrs. Linklater straps it all on and dives in, she's going to give new meaning to "heavy water."