CSA Reunion
Labor Day weekend was the setting for a reunion of the Columbus (Mississippi) Swim Association. This will mean nothing to folks who are not from Columbus. But this event was significant for those who grew up in Columbus. The swim team was a very unifying, formative, and defining experience for those of us who were a part of it. It was amazing to see the vast number of people who were part of this and bound together because of it. With time we are all a diaspora of sorts, but we were all pinned to this organization that worked us so hard and bound us all together in this corner of the Old South in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. We all found friends that we'd forgotten we had. We all felt this common, solid, shared experience that played such a strong role in making us who we are now.
It took me by surprise to feel this bond. It's made me feel even closer to my lane and team mates on my masters team here in San Luis Obispo. Hard to explain to an outsider, but there it is...real, profound, meaningful. It's a life-long activity that still creates deep, strong bonds of camaraderie and friendship.
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Rusty Lewis rouses Blue Team. CeCe Hayes is laughing at left side of photo. Julie Chain is to Rusty's left in white T-shirt. Wayne Price is behind guy with goggles in his mouth. At right of picture are Brendan Hayes (white shirt, now an anesthesiologist at Mayo Clinic) and Gerald Kohers (behind Brendan in red swim trunks, a professor at Sam Houston State in Huntsville, Texas). |
| More Blue Team: Julie Chain with goggles and Linda Hall to right of Julie. | |
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Red Team: Margie Hayes Shelby (with orange towel), David Campbell (to right of Margie), Mory Andrews, Ann Ware (in front of Mory), George Shelby (Margie's husband, in back), ?, me, Lon Abadie (with blue towel), Lucas Smith (the current Columbus coach), Becky Smith (green swimsuit). |
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Chris Chain, the person mostly responsible for making this reunion happen. |
| Jeff and Libba McKinney | |
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The beautiful Hayes clan: CeCe, Brendan, and Margie |
| Some real old timers here: back row: Jane Crowe, Lydia Owen, Dee Abadie, Jeff McKinney, Lon Abadie, Ginger McCord; front row: Libba McKinney, Susie Winters, Blair Palmer, Marsha Owen, Myna Holleman | |
| Helen Young Hayes with her youngest, me, Claire Young, swimmers of mine when I coached in Starkville, Mississippi, summers of 1975 and 1976. | |
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Lydia and John rake and fight off poison oak for a swimmer's reception. |