Glub glub

When we left each other yesterday, we had just been talking about how many, many requirements the Swimming and Life saving badges have. And through a series of emails I've received today, I'm starting to get the idea that some of you may be a little doubtful that any actual swimming took place -- after all, yesterday's video did just cut off with me expressing some reluctance to get fully into the water.

Never fear.



Strict as I may be (or may be inclined to be), know this: Wendy's neighbor, Robin, is far, far stricter than I am. While I might have been tempted to consider that swimming 200 yards total and swimming 50 yards fully dressed could overlap, Robin was having none of it. This applied across the board -- diving from the surface and diving from the surface to retrieve a 5 pound weight also didn't overlap. (This is probably for the best, really. I'm sure that the original Handbook didn't mean for the scouts to conflate one badge activity into another, so really, Robin was probably right. Plus, it meant extra swimming for me, which was probably healthier after all.)

After some convincing (it was only maybe 70 out, and the water was an easy 10 degrees colder than that), it was time. We started out with the clothed swim, then moved into the two hundred yards and the one hundred hands-less backstroke. (Let me tell you, the photography for the hands-less backstroke just looks awkward, but it went much, much better than I'd expected, and was maybe the most useful piece of the whole set of requirements. After all, if I'm saving someone, I'll need my hands for other purposes, right?) I tried to switch up strokes in general, though it's been a long time since I really did much regular swimming.

When I was a kid, I took swimming lessons at day camp. I was much more of an indoor arts and crafts kind of kid, and my general lack of competitiveness led itself more towards basic swimming than towards kickball, volleyball, any of the standard summer camp stuff. (Besides, I was generally too independent for camp -- I didn't like the regimented schedule, either.) This leads, really, to another of the reasons why the Handbook and I are such a good match. While I was never a fast swimmer, I was an enthusiastic and solid one. I liked swimming because it was fun, not because it was something I might win. The Handbook, in fact, cautions against focusing too heavily on speed and competition in swimming -- "Speed swimming for itself alone is a very selfish sport so that the scout should develop his ability to make it generally useful to others." I keep returning to the public spiritedness of the Handbook, I know, but time and again I'm reminded that this is my favorite part of the project -- we're doing things because they're useful.

I'd forgotten a weight to dive for, but Wendy's mother, Bonnie, produced a small barbell, so I used that instead. The real difficulty there came in with the similar colors of the blue-coated barbell and the dark blue pool bottom. There was a certain amount of blind groping going on at the bottom of the pool. To be more true to the spirit of the badge, I think this would have had to take place in a lake or something with a dark, muddy bottom, so once again, I suppose the barbell camouflage will have to do.

The final piece, and maybe the best, was the actual rescuing. Wendy is a great sport, so she volunteered herself to faux-drown. I first did the release demonstrations on land, and they were no real problem -- I loosed myself from various chokeholds with no trouble at all. In the water, however, things got much more difficult.

See, here's my issue with the Life saving badge: not enough actual saving of lives. The only water-based lifesaving requirement is to demonstrate two forms of release in the water. There are two problems with this: first, there's no water depth requirement (though Wendy and I used the deep end of the pool -- it only seemed fair) and, other than those two releases (we did a wrist grab and a chokehold), there's no demonstration of pulling someone to safety or anything else lifesaving-related. For a document so concerned with completeness, the Handbook is mysteriously silent on this front. I've been trying to think of why, but I'm really coming up empty-handed on this one. Any ideas?

Regardless, Wendy was a good sport about these things and allowed me to mime knocking the wind out of her, breaking her wrists, all that kind of thing. Despite the lack of requirements, she also allowed me to pull her to safety (so much the better -- I secretly think this is the most practical aspect of the Life saving badge, even though it's not a real one).

By the end of the morning, I was content to award myself the Swimming badge, and I'm one demonstration of resuscitation away from Life saving. Happy end of summer, kids.