Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity

LLC

Forward

A big Muchas Gracias to:

Many folks actually, way too many to name, but a lot of you will find yourselves in this book as you read along. Thank you to my husband, Scott for supporting me both emotionally and as my technological backbone through the writing process. Thanks to my beautiful kids who pumped me with questions and great moments of conversation, which fueled this book.

Thank you to ALL four of my parents who gave me life in one way or another. Thank you especially to Grandmas Frances and Elsie, who were living examples of the best parts of life. Thank you to everyone in my entire family. Thanks, Mom for taking and meticulously storing, labeling and organizing all those thousands of slide pictures for fifty years! Mom, if you read this, please know that I may have sometimes been an unhappy kid in the past, but it wasn’t your fault. It was my feeling then, but not now.

Thanks and appreciation to some teachers from Indian Hill High School who lead me toward my professional life by showing faith, encouragement and scholarly direction:  my writing mentors, Mr. West, Mr. Orndorff, and my Spanish teachers Mr. Fogle, Mrs. Vanderbeck. There are no adequate words in any language to express my gratitude for your influence on my life.

Thank you to my editor, Wendy Hart Beckman and the inspiration and encouragement of all the members of her Writing Workshop-Workshop.

The marvelous graphic artists at 99designs, especially Nellista deserve a huge round of applause for the cover, spine and back design of this book.

There are way too many colleagues, real life and online friends who have helped, supported and influenced me in ways you will never know, but a special thank you goes out at last to the Heiser Family, and everyone who considers themselves as a member of The Pack, plus Lori, Sue, the Cincinnati Tri State Writers group and and my cousins, Joy & Dave for all the Inkwell’s good times and inspiration.

The family lore I tell in this book is based on stories my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and older cousins shared over the years. It’s as accurate as what was told to me, however, I did change some names and blend a few characters to respect some people’s privacy issues.

If anyone is hurt by any statement I’ve made or some parcel of information revealed, I’m sorry. No malice is intended. I wrote this book to share with readers what it felt like to be an adopted kid in an era of closeted shame and fear. I want to tell adoptees that it is good and right to question who you are and to not accept a lie about your past, and that it is possible to blend your natural and adopted heritages and cultures and be proud of both. Adoptive parents, your child one day might question who they are, so be ready to support them if they choose to search and know that they will never stop thinking of you as Mom and Dad.  For birth parents, please know that we adoptees do respect you for giving us life and making the best choices you could have made at the time. Whether we find and met you or not, you are never forgotten.

P.

Chapter 1

When I asked my parents the classic question, Where did I come from? Mom and Dad began by telling me that I came from God. I found that piece of information very confusing because the first picture they have of me was of a dark-haired woman holding me with her back turned. My baby face peers over her shoulder. Bare trees and a sky-blue Volkswagen with Ohio license plates can be seen in the background. For a long time I wondered if God was a brown-haired lady from Ohio who drove a classic Beetle.

I hated how the story was so nondescript and lacking in information. It wasn’t exciting and filled with humor and tenderness like scenes on television. Everybody else had pictures of sleeping babies in mothers’ arms, related stories of all the visitors who came, and told the dramatic stories of how their dad frantically loaded the car, backed out of the driveway and knocked over the trash cans as he sped off in a blizzard during rush hour to deliver Mom to the hospital 20 miles away while she sat beside him panting and yelling, Honey, hurry faster! The baby’s coming now!  I didn’t have a father who nervously paced around in a waiting room, wearing a tread into the flooring with his big feet, sporting a five-o’clock shadow across his weary face. No doctor in scrubs came out after many hours to shake his hand and say, Congratulations, Mr. Adams, you have a daughter.

No one threw a party to shower my mom with receiving blankets and tiny booties while she sat in a chair with a cup of tea, a bulging belly and a romantic glow on her face, either.

Instead, I was born prematurely in both time and weight and had to spend about a month in the hospital until I grew and gained enough to be released to foster care. Then my parents came along in 1962 and adopted me from Hamilton County Welfare when I was 13 months old. Their social worker informed them very little about my start in life, only that the birth mother was a minor, and she couldn’t keep me.

They noticed that I had some sort of lazy eye condition. My adoptive grandmother was quite concerned that my feet were pigeon-toed, so she and my mother took me to doctors in downtown Cincinnati for examinations. Both specialists told my family that everything was just fine, and that eventually I would grow out of these perceived deformities between my eyes and my feet. I just needed extra time. That gap between my birth and the 13 months it took to have me placed in a home setting set me back, and the welfare agency told my parents that I might lag behind in my development. It was HCW’s version of Buyer beware. When I was eventually adopted, I didn’t walk or crawl. I could sit up but not yet walk. I used a bottle, but I could not feed myself finger food. I rolled around and cried, Waa, but I couldn’t do much else. I was a blob, even at slightly over one year, until people began to spend enough time with me and allow me freedom to explore scattered toys, books, messy cookies, hallways and the gooey jowls of our family dog, like a sensorimotor-staged baby needs to do.

My first actual memory is sitting in the side yard of our house throwing a bunch of leaves in the air at some lady. I can still recall the clear autumn sky and the crunchy mounds of just-raked leaves of rust red, dusty orange and brown, spiraling in the air as they landed around us. Maybe the lady was my mom who raised me. I wish I could know for certain that my first memory is of my mom.

I don’t remember John F. Kennedy being shot, but I do know that when it happened in November of 1963, Mom and Dad were in the process of packing up the house and moving to a new place over that somber weekend. We were staying in the same town, but it would be a larger home on a street with a lot of young kids and sidewalks for bike riding and walking to school. My parents were among the few in the nation, it seemed, who were not JFK fans. Mom and Dad had their own agendas and were more focused on packing boxes, loading cars, making runs to the new house and meeting deadlines. Their priorities at the time were primarily on my father’s emerging career in management with the phone company, and setting up house. They were constantly going, growing, changing and making improvements to their lives, such as adopting a child, moving to a better place and buying nicer cars. They were go-getters and never stayed satisfied for very long.

I spent a great deal of time with my Grandma Frances, my mom’s mother. She lived in walking distance, so we spent many days and nights together. Grandma Frances, who had an incredible sweet tooth, was also the provider of endless sugary and starchy treats like big cookies with icing, hard rolls, sweet rolls, chocolate pudding and her homemade sodas with vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s syrup and 7 Up. When she made them at her house, they were the best because she even had long spoons with handles that were actually straws. In all the sugar we consumed, not a soul in our family ever turned up diabetic. No one cared about carbohydrates or fat either. We simply ate and enjoyed.

When I was small, I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. I spent hours pretending to be Dorothy, roaming my block with a stuffed dog and a basket. I re-enacted scenes from the movie so much that my nursery school teachers were baffled by my need to live in an imaginary world and by my extreme creativity. The movie scene in which Dorothy stands at the gate of her farm, while the wind howls was mesmerizing as I watched the incredibly real-looking twister spin closer in the background. It was amazing and terrifying.

There were two major problems when I was little. One was being short. I had a very intense complex about this condition. I hated the word and anything synonymous with it. For whatever reason, to me, short or little equaled inadequate, and I dreaded being unworthy. I was a small child in a world full of important adults, who ruled everything. Adults in charge of me held the secrets to the universe. They knew all the answers to information I wanted to know, like where I really came from. I surmised that if I could be physically bigger, I would have the authority to know more about myself and anything else I wanted to learn, but little people like me were stupid and couldn’t handle it. From cookie jars to closed legal records, everything was out of my reach.

My other shortcoming to contend with at the time was my first name, Paige. I absolutely hated it. It was different. My parents picked my name because my Aunt Nora, (my dad’s sister), had heard it somewhere, and she liked it. Aunt Nora did not have children of her own. I don’t know if my parents were trying to include her or felt sorry for her or what, but because of her idea, they decided not to go with the name Cindy, and my name became Paige.

I withstood endless days of teasing on school playgrounds. I hated all the jokes and silly remarks about my first name, and I wished I’d been given a normal name like Julie or Mary. I’d become angry and yell or cry, and that intensified the taunting of the other children. Having a temper did not do me any favors.

Unknowing people misspelled my name. I was sick and tired of going through it with anyone who couldn’t treat my name normally. No one else had confusion about his or her moniker. My name was the only identity I did have, and it pissed me off when someone got it wrong. I was ready to scream and punch out the next person who said, Oh…like page in a book. When I was small, I couldn’t tell the difference between honest mistakes or if this was another way for people torture me for having an odd name. Once, when we had to write business letters in third grade, I received a reply to mine addressed to Mr. Paige Adams. The stupidity and thoughtlessness of people would never end, even with adults!

I hated being different. Around school, peers would crucify and senselessly hate you for being different. All I wanted was to blend in with people. Instead, I saw myself as a feisty, short person with a weird name, who had an odd start in life and a bad haircut to boot. My goal was to cruise along, unnoticed, and be treated the same as everybody else. However, that wasn’t easy for a little person with an uncommon name, and ugly, crooked pixie bangs, who often felt left out when childhood friends discussed how do babies get born.

Chapter 2

My adoptive maternal grandfather, Fred Short, was an astute, honest businessman who worked in finance at the Alms and Doepke Department Store in downtown Cincinnati during the 1930s-1950s. Fred only had a fourth-grade education. He’d quit school to support his family when his father was killed in an accident as a railroad worker. He was self-educated, intellectual and well-read. He followed current events, the stock market and horse racing in his free time. At his home in Latonia, Kentucky, he treated his wife and daughter like a queen and a princess, respectively, and generously supported other family members on occasion. He was a calm, kind and a well-dressed scholarly gentleman. Unfortunately, Fred Short died in 1959 from a stroke, so I never had the honor of knowing him personally. He seemed to be regal and dignified, yet quite likable, and I felt as though I’d been cheated in the grandfather department.

My mother’s mother, Frances Louise Schroeder Short was from a straight-laced, work-oriented German family in Rising Sun, Indiana. They ran a hotel/restaurant business called the Empire House, which overlooked the Ohio River. Frances’ job was to wait tables and assist with linens, cooking, cleaning slop jars or anything else in need of attention. She met Fred while she was waiting tables. He came to the Empire House regularly when he was starting his career as a traveling salesman, and she waited on him in the dining room. They were married in 1923 in Rising Sun, Indiana.

Fred and Frances had one other child two years before my mom, but he died at birth from cord strangulation. His grave doesn’t indicate it, but Grandma once told me that his name was David. She cried any time the subject came up, so I learned not to ask too many questions.

My mother was, therefore, their only child, born later in life. She led a charmed existence as the center of her parents’ world. She was taken on buying trips to New York and given modeling opportunities. She was well-rounded with a college education from Indiana University and found post-graduate opportunities to travel in Europe and Hawaii. Mom was both artistic and possessed a talent and love for math, particularly in the areas of investment and money management. Mom was in charge of the budget and check writing in our house. She was very frugal with money, but we never did without the important things. Her parents told her that she could do anything and be anything she wanted in life if she put her mind to it, and Mom always tried to instill that idea in my brother and me.

She was a statuesque, full-figured woman with long painted fingernails and red lipstick. I always felt very safe, loved and protected with her. No one could get past my mom, and she would never let anything bad happen to me. Her skin was fair and flawless, her hair was thick, and medium brown, which somehow slowly evolved to platinum blonde as the years passed. Occasionally, when she was mad, my mom would say, Oh damn! or Oh hell!  I thought that was funny, but I was never allowed to use cuss words.

Mom had a fascination with certain animals. They were like totems for her. She adored dogs and liked training them. She was also drawn to elephants and owls. She identified with the largeness and mightiness of an elephant. It was tall and could see everything coming its way, while able to defend itself and its young. Owls were all seeing and all knowing. Being smart and observant were important qualities for my mom. She was perceptive and inquisitive and mastered the art of researching information with ease and precision. Mom, who was proud of her height and full of confidence, radiated success and authority everywhere she went. She commanded it in a magical way. If she wanted something badly enough, even small things, she managed to succeed. She was a big fan of the saying, The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Mom was assertive, resourceful and could do anything.

On the other hand, turtles, especially box turtles and sea turtles, intrigued me. They were slow, closer to the earth, quiet but long lasting and had a protective shell. I could identify with the desire to feel protected yet be self-sufficient. My vocabulary was extensive, but I wasn’t much for small talk. I found it awkward breaking into circles of conversation, and I processed information slowly. I longed for acceptance but was tremendously shy. I never had self-assurance like my mother. Whenever I attempted to speak up, people told me I was sassy or that I should watch my step. I couldn’t get the hang of Mom’s talent for insisting on her way and getting it. It seemed that I was either too backward or a pop off.

In many ways, my mom was perfect. She had the glamour and class of Jackie O. and Princess Grace plus intelligence and social graces. She had it all. I was just the opposite in that regard. I was always klutzy, unrefined and in need of correction. Even if she said, Oh damn. and smoked Benson and Hedges, she was still without error, always had the last word, and that drove me crazy.

My dad, Theodore Adams, (Teddy), was in nearly every way the complete opposite of my mom. He was a poor boy with country relatives. Ted’s family lost nearly everything in the 1937 flood in Newport, Kentucky. He worked all of his life, starting with odd jobs in childhood, and he had to contribute some of that money to the household each week.

Ted’s mother, Elsie Naomi, was adoring and compassionate. She lovingly referred to her only son as Ronnie to avoid name confusion with his father. My grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt Adams, was hot tempered, loud and accustomed to always being in charge. Grandpa Adams roared with fury and cursed when dinner was late or if someone left a mess. My father said that was because his father was a Goddamn Aries. and when my dad used the word, Aries, he’d pronounce it as, A-reeze. Dad always insisted that if I’d met my grandfather, I would have loved him and that he would have adored me. I wasn’t so sure about that. Dad said that Grandpa Adams would have teased me and had fun with me. I didn’t understand how someone so mean and domineering could have also been a fun guy. Our two A-reeze personalities would have clashed in a battle of wills.

Teddy had an after-school job as a clerk at a family-owned pharmacy, and after graduating from Holmes High School in 1946, his kind, fatherly boss, Mr. Ulrey, told him that to amount to anything in life he should go over the Ohio River to Cincinnati and get on with a large company. Ted moved on to the position of mailroom boy at Cincinnati Bell after graduating at the age of seventeen. He was then drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He remained stateside at Fort Meade, Maryland, and attained the rank of corporal in the medics. The sight of blood, vomit and other body fluids made Dad squirm, and no one exactly knows how he ended up with the medics, but he was assigned a desk job and, in his words, became, the best Goddamn typist in the Army. in order to keep from being shot and killed overseas.

After his discharge he went back to work at Cincinnati Bell. My parents met on a blind dinner date set up by mutual friends. My dad began to work his way up in the company, in spite of the fact that he didn’t have a college education. He could have gone to college on the G.I. bill, but he chose not to, although it always bothered him that my mother had more of an education than he did. It also bothered him that she was another A-reeze, just like his father; however, my strong-willed mother didn’t have a hot temper. Instead he was impressed by her charm, class and how incredibly sophisticated she seemed compared to his provincial and thunderous family.

Dad’s Cherokee Indian heritage made his hair black-brown and his complexion dark. He looked a little like the Cuban actor/performer Desi Arnaz back in the 1950s and1960s, especially when he was dressed up in a suit. His favorite TV show was Star Trek. He admired Captain Kirk’s ability to boldly go where no man has gone before and applied that goal to his own work life when he proposed deals and promoted innovative products. He swore that telephones would have little TVs in them before long and that it would only take hitting one button to make a call in the future. He was a big believer in life forms on other planets and in all sorts of unexplained phenomena. We used to laugh at him for thinking like that, but he never shared that side of himself with anyone connected with work. He read sci-fi books, his daily horoscope and worked crossword puzzles in the bathroom in the mornings. It was a standing rule in our house to never bother Dad during this time. If you did open the door during his time in the bathroom, there had better be a good reason like a fire or a tornado. Otherwise, his temper would erupt with plenty of loud cursing and fists waving. He was more like his own father than Captain James T. Kirk, but he denied that.

Dad was a nut for roller coasters. It was always his job and pleasure to take me on the Wild Mouse at Old Coney Island. Every year I lived for two minutes of absolute terror and his undivided attention as we waited in line. While we stood, he’d describe a few of the other adult rides like the Shooting Star and the Lost River. Since I was too young to ride those, I could only imagine the rush of terror and elation while you plummeted in the blink of an eye down a tall, narrow, rickety rail. The line would move slowly, but for the Wild Mouse ride, my dad would smoke a cigarette or two and patiently sing Glowworm or I Want to Be Loved by You to pass the time. With his fingers he would perform, Here’s the church and here’s the steeple, open the doors, and there’s all the people! I adored this one-on-one time with my dad, and it was sacred because it only happened once a year. My insides would rumble and the thrilling surge of panic would sweep through me when we’d arrive at the front of the metal gate and be assigned to a hard seat with only a chain hooked across your lap. Together, we felt that tingling rush through the gut as we descended that first hill at top speed.

Dad swore more than my mom did. His common curses were Goddamn and Jesus Christ, and he used those words loudly and often. Between my two parents, I thought I knew it all when it came to cussing.

My dad couldn’t read a note of music, but he could play guitar and piano by ear. He had a certain repertoire of pieces for each instrument. When I was very small I’d sit on the piano bench next to him and listen just to keep him company and get attention. Once he taught me a quick silly tune you played on just the black keys with your knuckles, but I never learned to read notes either. I was never that motivated. I was satisfied with being a listener, and I NEVER wanted to be one of those kids whose parents made them play before house guests at their dinner parties. Dad was good with me for his audience, and my parents never pushed me to take a lesson, which was just as well, being that my eyes and fingers never could keep up at the same time. Dad believed that talent in music was inherited. I never had a chance.

The guitar music was more fun, but again, I was destined to only be a listener and not a player. The guitar case would come out of the hall closet when there were family get-togethers with relatives on the Adams-Fetzer side. When my dad and his Uncle Wayne in Price Hill got together, the party began. Dad was reared with his sister, Nora, and Wayne, who was really just a few years older. My dad worshipped his youthful, big kid uncle, who taught him about girls, smoking, cars and music. Wayne had had natural but untrained ability and taught Dad how to play guitar by ear when they were school kids. My dad would do anything that Wayne said, so they practiced guitar by trying to outdo each other both in speed and in endurance until their fingers were bloody. Wayne only knew country and blue grass music, so that’s what Dad learned.

Those family back-yard parties were some of the best of times. Wayne had also taught his twin sons to play, so when things really got going, there would be four guitars in all. Ross and Russell, who were cool teenagers, played folk rock songs like Leaving on a Jet Plane and Me and You and a Dog Named Boo. I thought life would be perfect if I could travel around the country as a longhaired, peace-sign giving, tye-dye wearing hippie with a dog plus cool, colorful love beads hanging all around inside a VW Microbus. My hippie friends could play the guitars; I’d take care of the dog.

Dad didn’t have that mystical, magical way of accomplishing things that Mom possessed. Everything he achieved and received came through much serious work and a lot of yelling at people until the job was done right. He didn’t win games or draw lucky numbers, but his super powers came from his extreme ambition to get ahead, his outgoingness, and his keen observations about other people. He moved and spoke quickly. He rose early and was ready to start the day. His army sergeant taught him that all you have to be to make it in the world was one percent better than everybody else, and Dad used that wisdom to become successful. He was always poised to win the race, but if he could have a little fun along the way, that was fine too.

Both of my parents adored their extended families and loved to share everything they knew about the Shorts, Schroeders, Fetzers and Adamses by telling stories and browsing photos. Their own households growing up were small, but time spent with their grandparents and cousins was precious. The importance of knowing and maintaining relationships with everyone related, even the offbeat and distant folks was a value they passed down to me. I could listen to the old people reminisce for hours and never feel bored. They did their best to include me, and I soaked up their heritage and was proud to tell people I was English, German and Cherokee with some possible, but not documented Jewish ancestry, tossed in. As an adoptee though, I could never be certain but I wished to God it were true.

Chapter 3

We lived fairly contentedly as a family of three plus a Boxer dog named Dee Dee on Indian View Avenue, a quiet, tree-lined street with diversely styled and colorful older homes, sidewalks and neatly trimmed but modest yards. In fact, we were there for six years, and I have all happy memories from that house.

My parents found a housekeeper/cleaning woman to come every Friday. Her name was Marta, and she was a young woman from Yugoslavia, who had escaped the oppression and poverty of Eastern Europe years before. Her English was still very broken, but our family instantly bonded with her. She was young and full of energy and never minded taking a short break to go on walks or to play a simple card game with me. Marta shared some Yugoslavian cookie recipes and made treats for us, too. She was strong and determined and never missed her Friday job at our house. Marta had other cleaning clients, but she had a way of making us feel like her special customers, and my mom and dad took her on trips with us and treated her like their extra sister.

I had my tonsils out when I was five. Dr. Sydney Peerless was my ENT doctor. He used to say that the reason I had so many ear and throat infections was that something was stuck in there, and then he would, with slight of hand, pull lollipops out of my ears.

With all of his good humor and expertise, I was still hideously frightened of being operated on. My grandmother read me the Wonder Book, A Visit to the Hospital, but I still knew better. On TV shows like Ben Casey, surgery was dramatic and terrifying. People were cut open and stitched back together, bearing scars like the Frankenstein monster for the rest of their lives. Their bodies were never the same. I feared whether I would ever walk again, even though it was just my tonsils. I dreaded seeing bright, red bloodstains on white medical scrubs and glimmering scalpels under huge, round lights. I was terrified of untimely, young death or disfigurement. It was such a relief to have that operation in the past, with many greeting cards to open, some with dollar bills from caring older aunties and cousins tucked inside, all the pudding and ice cream I wanted and no school for a week, but I did miss those suckers because Dr. Peerless gave out the big kinds on a thick stick, not the small, cheap ones that that Potter’s shoe store gave away.

I went to the Mariemont Church Pre-School for two years, and my best pal there was a little girl named Nancy. Nancy and I played together, and sometimes we were allowed to go back to each other’s houses for the rest of the afternoon. We also ran around with Betsy, Ricky-Paul and Sherry. Sherry had an older sister named Annie who, for as long as I can remember, always wore a neck and back brace. Back then you never asked why, and you never stared too closely, so I never understood the details. All I knew was being often reminded that I was lucky because I didn’t have a problem like that. Although they never said it directly, my parents were always conscious of the fact that since my real genetics weren’t known, I must have been extremely fortunate because I turned out healthy. Instead of feeling grateful, the Thank your lucky stars you didn’t turn out that way lecture often filled me with guilt.

There was a small playground connected to the Parish Center building, which housed the pre-school. There were swings, slides, a glider and some sort of carousel that we sat on to ride around in circles. I remember swinging with Nancy so high that we could make the chains on the swings snap. We got in trouble a few times for leaping in the air out of our swings before we stopped. The thrill of sailing weightlessly for two seconds in the air felt like riding the Wild Mouse.

I also remember one rainy day, a shy little boy, Scotty, who used to sit on the wooden carousel. Scotty was skinny with crooked teeth and big blue eyes. His towhead blond hair was closely shaven in a burr, which made him look like a bald, white bird but with ears sticking straight out like wings. A few freckles dotted his nose.

It was a muddy, messy day, but the rain had stopped long enough for recess. Nancy and I wanted on that carousel, but Scotty refused to share with girls. In retaliation, Nancy and I started making fun of him in his yellow slicker style raincoat, especially the hat. He wore a yellow cap, which covered his entire head with a square cut out for the face. Nancy and I decided that Scotty looked silly in his get up. The more we taunted, the more he screamed. Scotty was most annoyed and emotional. We called him, Scott the astronaut, and he screeched and yelled back with anger. For some reason, he never did tell the teacher on us, and Nancy and I were never reprimanded for teasing. However, we learned our karmic lessons because by the following school year in kindergarten our mothers had bought us the girls’ version of the same ugly yellow rain slickers with buckles for buttons, including those stupid hats!

Three doors down on Indian View Avenue lived the Parker family, Mr. and Mrs. Parker and their kids: Barbie, Doug, Judy and Ricky-Paul, (who was my age). Ricky and I spent many afternoons playing together. We shared rides to nursery school and back with a few other kids in the area, took swimming lessons together, painted and colored and played with the dog.

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to master swimming. It was not as easy as it looked, and I couldn’t coordinate putting my face in the water and blowing bubbles. In fact, the idea of dunking myself and blowing out the remaining air I did have made no sense whatsoever. Everyone my age was figuring out swimming without fear and confusion, but I could not. I saw myself as deficient in yet another area: bad hair, too short, funny name, not born like other people and now unable to swim like Ricky-Paul, and everybody else. I screamed and cried frantically for my parents. My mother made everything seem easy when she gracefully demonstrated, but it never was simple for me. The swim teachers