The End of Another Summer of “Calvin Days” 2010

Today was K & O’s last swimming lesson of the 2010 season. This was their third summer in a row of “Calvin Days” (i.e., swimming lessons with Calvin). When we started this, K & O were 4 years old and Calvin was still at Lehigh, living relatively close by. Now the boys are 6 and Calvin is a PhD student in The Big Apple. We worked with his schedule and found a whole bunch of dates that would work. Not every week — but many a week — he has made the trip out here (3+ hours round-trip) for K & O. It is hard to write about Calvin. I mean, where do I even start? Do I talk about how it practically brings me to tears to think of his devotion to my boys and my boys’ adoration of him? Do I speak from the perspective of his old professor– so proud of his accomplishments, what he’s making of his life, and his commitment to being an outstanding role model for young black boys? Or do I write as his swim students’ mom– recording how far he’s brought K & O in their swimming abilities and how amazed he (and we) are in what they can do in the pool? The thing is, Calvin is just all-around-great. We are just lucky to have him in our lives. I don’t know how to write or talk about that without getting all sappy.

So, today we ended another summer of “Calvin Days” with a Thank-You Lunch for Calvin after the swim lesson. For the first time ever I gave Owen a good camera and let him do the honors of taking the photos. He did a good job. I picked three of the many photos that he took:

At the end of the swim lesson today, Braydon and I went down to the pool for a little demonstration of all that they’ve learned from Calvin this summer. They are doing all of the swimming strokes, diving really well, doing flip-turns, etc. The big thing they mastered this summer was treading water. Calvin makes them do it in the deep end for 30 second intervals. They do great at it. Calvin wants us to sign them up for competitive swimming this winter. We’ll see.

As we end this third year of swimming lessons with Calvin, I am left with the same feelings that I’ve had the other two summers: I don’t know which I’m more happy about– what Calvin is teaching them in the pool, or what Calvin is teaching them outside the pool. I’m glad I don’t have to choose just one, and I’m so grateful to Calvin for both.