Hold My Beer and Watch Me Participate in My Favorite Water Sport, by Ricky

As a pre-teen, I could never hold my beer very long. For that matter, I could never leave it on the table or TV tray for long either. My parents had a modestly stocked liquor cabinet under our built-in BBQ in the kitchen. Jimmy and I did sneak a taste, once only. Neither of us cared for hard liquor but the beer we attacked without hesitation each time he visited until it was all gone, followed by a somewhat lengthy visit to the bathroom to see a man about a horse as it were. My parents were not blind and noticed the disappearance of the containers. After that, they did not buy me any root beer in large qualities when they went to the store.

One day when I was 13, I was attending a Red Cross swimming class to learn how to swim. I had no bathing suit so was wearing a one year too small pair of green shorts. The shorts were not tight anywhere except at the waist but, they were loose at the crotch. Did I mention they were small or perhaps I should have said “too short”? During the classes, my favorite thing to do was to be up to the waist in water at the shallow end, take a deep breath and hold it, dive down to the bottom, then swim underwater to the other end of the pool, all the while slowly rising towards the surface. I would do this repeatedly as long as the female instructors would let me. This was and still is the only way I can swim for short distances.

At the end of the second swimming class, I was walking home with Roy, the brother of another boy who was in my rival scout troop. As we were talking, Roy told me that as I was swimming he could see my testicles through the leg opening of my shorts. Remember, I did say the shorts were too short. The shorts were not a swimming suit so there was no liner in them either. Naturally, I was slightly embarrassed but also titillated as I imagined all those female instructors feasting their collective eyes on me and whispering to each other “Look at that boy’s balls”. Roy’s revelation to me about my equipment, shortly thereafter led to some naked playtime before he had to go home.

So, you can see why as a teen, swimming class was my favorite water sport—just ahead of seeing a man about a horse.

© 26 Oct 2015

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com