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Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009

Readers share their memories of the YMCA

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Where should my memory list begin?

 

  • I was hired to teach a fitness class "for women only" around 1976.  My 6 students ran on a tiny track, etched in white paint, behind the building.  The track measured 15 laps to the mile, or thereabouts.  We women were too timid to run on the streets.  (As for me, I decided to tackle the roads, duck the produce thrown from passing cars, dismiss the lewd remarks, and went on to be the first woman member of the cross-country team at MJC).

  • Upon returning to the YMCA several years later, I started a career that lasted for more than 10 years.

  • The women who trained for the Bonne Belle 10 km in Golden Gate Park for several successive years.  For many, this endeavor was a first step in learning that they could be strong, determined, and accomplished ... independent of the men in their lives.  We would car pool to San Francisco and the tears started to flow at the finish line.

  • Neva Forney became my friend, and later my mother-in-law.

  • Learn to Swim Week served hundreds of beginning swimmers each year in weeklong sessions of swim safety lessons.

  • Big Blue, the old YMCA bus, had to be double clutched.  We drove that 66 passenger behemoth all over the county to shepard children to a wide variety of classes and programs The really dumb jokes that our members would tell in the 6:00 AM fitness class.  EEGADS, were they corny.

  • John Sullivan, City Council member and active YMCA supporter, died in a sightseeing flight over the Grand Canyon.

  • Sadly, four of the 6:00 AM pranksters died in a single incident car crash on the way to check out the wildflowers in the Sierra Foothills at La Grange.

  • My first sight of my husband:  John Forney, Davis High School Alum, and  Berkeley Firefighter.  We've been married more than 20 years and together for 25.

  • Classes taught by Dr. Forney and my now sister-in-law, Lynn Tripp, on Wellness.  I really believed that these programs enhanced hundreds of lives.

  • The St. Patrick's Day Runs, at one time the largest and oldest run in the county.

  • The Christmas Tree Runs.

  • Youth Sports and the children who discovered t-ball, indoor soccer, basketball and more in a low-key supportive environment. 

  • My brother-in-law, Greg, met his wife when he was the coordinator of the youth basketball program in the YMCA gym.

  • My daughter, Rachael (Rocki), became the youngest recipient of the KCRA Spirit of California Youth Award for Service because the the uncountable hours of volunteer time she gave to the younger students as a gymnastics teacher, swim class assistant, and "buddy".

  • Rachael (Rocki) met her husband at the YMCA, too, and is now married to Dr. Jondy Cohen.

  • Chandra, Sue, and Bob Levy.  Do I need to say more?

  • The day that I was on a lifeguard duty when a VERY pregnant naked woman "sprinted" out of the locker room in pursuit of an errant runaway toddler.

  • The freedom that our disabled clients had in the therapy pool that they could experience nowhere else.

  • Joe, WWI vet, and quite a character.

  • The lonely people who found friendship and camaraderie at the Y when it was seemingly unobtainable.

  • Picking up children upon their return from Camp Jack Hazard when  they had gone a week without bathing.  The grime could not hide their exhausted smiles.

  • The swim teacher who pulled off his sweats at poolside in preparation for jumping in the water to teach preschoolers.  To all of our horror, but most of all his, he didn't have on his swim trunks.

  • Neva Forney, teaching yoga for 38 years, loving and being loved by hundreds.

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