Water Babe

Throughout my childhood, Mom always told us she was a “Water Babe.” I don’t think my sisters and I ever really knew what that meant. She’d try to teach us some of her water ballet moves in the pool: she showed us how to cup our hands to sculpt the water to keep yourself afloat and then extend a leg with a perfectly pointed toe. My sisters and I would attempt to mimic her gracefulness in the pool, but we always failed. It wasn’t because we were strangers to the water – at one time we were all members of the Lakeville Otters Swim Club. But, the joke with the other Otters was that the Radford girls all had a “chicken-wing” freestyle stroke. Grace and beauty in the pool really wasn’t our trademark.

So, this mysterious past as a “Water Babe” was mostly lost on us. That is – until the 1984 summer Olympics when water ballet – I mean – Synchronized Swimming – became an Olympic event. Boy – oh boy. THIS was what Mom was talking about?! These water ballerinas were like super-human Barbies with gills! My sister, Heather, and I would watch completely mesmerized as Mom would give us a play by play…mostly she said that water ballet was nothing like it was when she was growing up. She didn’t have to go underwater for very long (these synchronized swimmers would stay under for minutes at a time), they didn’t do launches or flips (Gill-Barbies were constantly catapulting one another), and their big show at the Duluth Sportsman’s Show paled in comparison to this Olympic event.

At the next commercial break, Heather and I were in the pool trying to choreograph our own Olympic synchronized swimming routine. The song: Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop.” The routine: A series of handstands and a few flaps of our chicken wings in the shallow end. We did the most awesome synchronized swimming routine that the 8 and 10 year old daughters of a water ballerina could do (with chicken wings).

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Photographic evidence of my Mom’s days as a Water Babe popped up years later. Mom found an old newspaper when she was cleaning; and right there on the front page of the Duluth News was my Water Ballerina Mother. The front page story covered the Sportsman’s Show, where the Ely Water Babes performed. Ma recalled a couple things about that day: the water was ice cold, and their performance was in between the log-rolling contest and the water dog exhibition. I really couldn’t make up those details if I tried.

And here’s a copy of the picture from the front page story. That’s Mom on the right. You can’t see her face, but I would recognize those pointed toes anywhere.