My Dirty Little Secret

Lida & Maurice Weidenthal 1911

   There are photos of my grandmother Lida and my grandfather Maurice romping in the water in the strangest kind of swimming attire. Defying simple description. There was my Dad hanging from a tree limb over the beach, playing some kind of ball with the others and running in the the water.

  I cannot identify the day my body and my mind become completely obsessed with the need to swim.  Not the ordinary, once a week “let’s go the beach” kind of need. That’s controlled, modified by weather, where you happened to be, one’s mood etc. This is uncontrollable. I need to do it every day. The circumstances are irrelevant. Much more scary, much more psychologically mysterious.

  I certainly wasn’t addicted when I was a kid. I had ear trouble, and kept away from the water much of my youth.  When I went to Cumberland pool as a youngster, my friends would jump off into the deep end.  I would timidly approach the three feet, splash around pretending that I knew what I was doing, and then return to the safety of the deck and hide behind a book or something. 

Chagrin Falls is Chagrin Falls Again

      I drove into Chagrin Falls the other day without once hitting a man made chuck hole in the road, clanking over a metal plate, dodging an orange barrel, or evading a front-end loader. It struck me that Chagrin Falls’ downtown renovation is complete.   No more jumping over moats or sloshing in the mud to get into shops. Now there are real sidewalks and curbs, new old-fashioned streetlights, and the rest. It was all pristine and like its old self, but a bit upgraded. Chagrin Falls is Chagrin Falls again.