Evolution

Jimbo took up swimming when he was 12. Those days, on Thursdays, after school, Jimbo would walk to his friend’s house from his school (Cochrane Road School) and together, they would then take a bus to the Weld Swimming Pool where they would join the others from the school’s swimming club. To call it a club would be laughable as there wasn’t any coaching done and we were basically left alone to play in the water.

Jimbo was never a very good swimmer. Those days he could hardly paddle 25 meters in in the pool, gasping for breath all the way! One more meter and he would have drowned.

Still, swimming has always been a passion for him and he enjoys a swim, no matter how brief. It’s truly a good exercise, not requiring any physical body contact (unless you crash into hippos that hog up the shallow end of the pool while doing your laps!)

Those days, cleaning up after a swim was easy. All one needs is a bar of soap, usually wrapped in a plastic bag. With the soap, you basically wash everything, from the hair tips to the toe tips and everything in between.

A lot has changed since then.

Jimbo still loves to swim and he can give anyone a good ’swim’ for his money; doing anything between 10-20 50 meter laps at one go.

As for cleaning up post-swim, that has changed too! Now Jimbo carries an ‘arsenal’ of products, having been bombarded by the media that the air, the sun, the chlorinated water, the pool, the shower, the basically everything…. is detrimental to his health or look! And so his arsenal includes:

1. Sun blocks of various SPFs for various parts of his anatomy

2. Liquid soap

3. Syampoo and conditioner

4. After wash leave on hair conditioner

5. Facial moisturizer

6. Body lotion

The old bar-of-soap-in-plastic-bag has disappeared!

Yes, evolution is a very funny thing.

Tues, 020609 @ 0700