Swimmingly

I was deathly afraid of being underwater, though I intensely enjoyed being in the water. I could hang out in a bathtub full of water for hours, much to the consternation of other household members who wanted to use the bathroom. When we had a swimming pool I loved being in it (in summer weather, of course). I remember being dunked (sometimes on accident, sometimes because someone decided to be mean to me) and really hating the experience of water closing up around my head. Eventually I grew tired of hanging around the edges of the pool while everybody else enjoyed use of the entire thing, so I decided to teach myself to swim underwater. It took some time, patience, and courage on my part, but over the course of a summer I had done it. Not only that, I discovered (by accident) that I could open my eyes underwater and thus enjoy it so much more. I was quite proud of myself, and rightly so. A whole new underwater world had opened up to me, and I was no longer an “outsider” in the pool.

JB

I was called “JB” (short for Jon Bryan) for a bunch of years until I decided that I’d had enough and people must then call me “Jon”. I don’t rightly recall, but it was probably because it was my moniker as a child and I didn’t care to be thought of as a child anymore. Plus Dennis occasionally calling me “JB Baby” helped me reach that conclusion. It took time to get my family to make the switch, but eventually they all came around, except for my sister Rita who still calls me JB to this day. Dennis’s friends took to calling me “The Jib” (“jib” being an alternate pronunciation of JB) which I did not mind. It wasn’t “J B” and I got attention from the big kids. My friends had always referred to me as Jon, so there was no problem there.