Sally's Closet: Swimming Mask

As a kid, I often went to the Salvation Army with my grandmother to use their indoor swimming pool. For persons of excruciating pallor who are prone to sun-induced headaches, an indoor pool is always a treat. There were windows in the swimming room, but the light never came in very strong at all. We were generally in a kind of cloudy, hazy atmosphere. (I know this doesn’t sound very pleasant, but I liked it.) The pool wasn’t very deep at all – only 5 feet at its deepest end – but was fun to play around in, and given the low level of swimming skills I possessed, it was probably just as well that I wasn’t messing around in an 8 foot pool. Another huge plus was the fact that there was hardly ever anyone else there. You would get the occasional elderly person practicing their water aerobics the like, but it was blissfully empty and serene most of the time.

One day I found a mask that had been abandoned by another swimmer; it was in fine shape other than missing the strap to hold it on. I put it up to my face and looked down into the water; everything was extremely clear and it felt very comfortable. It was much superior to the kind of plastic goggles that I was used to other kids using sometimes (I myself didn’t have any kind of gear). I took it home and with help from my parents, rigged a multi-rubber-band strap. I came to love the mask for making it easy to do series of rolls without getting water up my nose, for keeping the horrid chlorine out of my eyes (because I hate to get anything in my eyes – a topic for another discussion), and for the glass being so nice to see through. The mask was my constant swimming companion for many, many years. Eventually, the plastic got stiff to the point where it was hard to keep it flush to my face without water leaking in, but it served me well for a long time. I’ve never seen another mask quite like it. So long, mask.