Michiganders Can’t Actually Swim
Have you ever seen someone do the breaststroke in the lake?
Here’s a theory: The vast majority of Michiganders can’t really swim.
Sure, we can flail around efficiently enough not to drown, but if any of us were caught in a Hawaii riptide without a bronzed lifeguard nearby, we’d be shark food.
We can pass the summer camp swim test, but only by a hair.
How can this be when we are surrounded by water?
Think about the average Michigander’s trip to the beach. After parking and setting up a little civilization for the afternoon, the Michigander braves the water. He may walk past his knees, then plunge forward to gasp at the chill, but he does not swim out. He plods forward on the sandy bottom, turning back when he can no longer touch.
Michiganders will play in the water, relax in it, but they don’t really swim in it, per se. This is hard to understand for those who didn’t grow up here. In much of America, long hot summer days involve lessons and competitive swimming in deep man-made swimming pools where if you don’t swim well, you simply drown.
But at the lake, you can always just wade in. A day spent in the water doesn’t actually require exercise.
But even for Michiganders who don’t frequent a lake, great or otherwise, a little less than half of residential swimming pools in the state are above ground and too small to swim laps in. I spent my formative years cooling off in a 4-foot-deep oval where you could do three backstrokes tops.
So where is a Michigander even supposed to learn proper swimming technique?
To be fair, in the traffic-clogged warren that is Metro Detroit, swim clubs are common. Suburban youths flock to the local pool to time their best freestyle stroke and some later spend long winter mornings training in the high school pool. Good to remember too that Michael Phelps trained at the University of Michigan.
But I’m talking about the rest of the state, us rabble of the hinterlands. If someone from Kalamazoo spends her youth visiting Lake Michigan for three weekends a year, could she really complete a lap or two of a breaststroke without breaking into a doggy paddle? Doubtful.
And given that Lake Superior is basically always too cold to even dip a toe in, is there percentage of Yoopers who have never even gone swimming?
Michigan is a state where enjoying the water is the goal, not conquering it through vigorous exercise.
Let the fish do the paddling, we’ll be taking in the view.
