Killer Tomatoes & Sneaky Typos
Episode 02:06:2023 - Prompt: Accolades
Where accolades took me…
I didn’t worry about receiving accolades. As an only child, I had no competition at home, and I didn’t feel the need to be rewarded for my efforts at school. In fact, I preferred to go unnoticed so I could cut classes when I didn’t do my homework.
My friends and I made up a competition.
Who could be in the most senior yearbook photos. No photo bombs. We had to get our names on rosters for the photo credit. It was a joke at first but became serious when we had to fulfill our pledges to the clubs and teams.
Which leads me to long distance swimming…
A friend suggested we try out for the swim team.
It quickly became clear I was not a fast swimmer. I could, however, hold my breath swimming the entire length of the pool underwater.
Coach offered me a spot on the team as the only long distance swimmer. It wasn’t outwardly competitive like relay and diving, and it wasn’t technical like butterfly or backstroke. The season continued with me swimming the long race against one or two other swimmers in our poorly maintained public school facilities. Very low stakes. All I had to do was show up and finish.
We called ourselves Killer Tomatoes, as in “Attack of the..”
Our school placed in the city finals, and we drew signs with our Killer Tomatoes logo and chanted. The event was held on the grounds of a private University with an Olympic-sized pool, stands with an audience. Announcers. A score board. High dives. The real deal.
As my friends speed-swam single laps on relay teams and dove through the air, I sat alone calculating the distance I had to swim. Was it the same? The pool was huge. There were ten swimmers. I had to be one of the first six for our team to have a chance of winning the overall meet. “All you have to do is qualify,” I remember hearing.
The pistol went off. I dove into the water and forgot the mission. Survival mode kicked in. I threw one arm over the other, kicking furiously, flipping at the turns, gulping for air. I lifted my head out of the silent water. My coach’s face was nearly at ground level shouting, “Go! Go!”
She pulled me out of the water at the finish. My throat was on fire, lungs heaving like bellows. “You did it! You finished fourth,” the team cheered.
We qualified! My job was done.
Not so fast, says anyone who knows anything about sports. Qualifying meant I had to do it all again in the evening, but I had nothing left in the tank. The team went to eat. I was afraid I’d puke in the pool. I had no idea how to manage my body. The last thing I wanted to do was get back in the water.
I finished fourth again but to no celebration. I watched friends triumphantly raise their silver medals won for the relay and realized ambivalence was also a form of ignorance. I swam 32-lengths of an Olympic pool - the first and only time in my life - and I felt sorry for myself rather than satisfied.
I don’t remember who won the yearbook photo challenge, but I learned endurance could be my strength once I understood the rules of the game.
YOUR TURN: Using ACCOLADES as a theme, write about your experience of awards or recognition. Deserved, desired, overlooked, returned. Don’t worry about being a “good writer”. Just get that sucker out in 150 - 200 words (the section above where I tell you about qualifying for the competition).
POST YOUR STORY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
Click the HEART when you read anyone’s post. Heart = Heard. Don’t comment on my or other people’s stories. For more about the rules & intention of this Zine, check the About page. Any questions, bring them up in the Forum.
Happy writing!
Even as a small child, I think beginning in kindergarten, I won awards for art. I remember the 5 foot Jolly Green Giant I drew when I was 6 that was hung up in the hallway for all to see, a ribbon with my name next to it.
Throughout my entire school experience I won various awards every year in anything relating to art. “Best in Show”, “Best In Drawing”, “Best in Sculpture”.
And always, I felt I didn’t deserve the accolades. But I continued to “over achieve” by creating SO many varied art mediums. Clay, oils, murals, theorem painting, print making, charcoals. I explored them all as if my life depended on it. A compulsion even.
In Senior year I won 2 monetary awards ($1000 each) towards my art ( and music) career.
Everyone expected me to attend an art school, but I choose a music college instead thinking that I could easily make art all day long, but studying music, when I could only play everything by ear, now THAT would be a challenge.
I won no accolades or awards while at Berklee College of Music...And was totally fine with that, living in certain anonymity, and even recently I threw away all those silly awards, plaques and degrees I had shleped around with all these years with no regrets.
A speedy birth, I was born blue or so the story goes. Blue skin from the impatient exit, mind ready but body unprepared for the abrupt change in environment. A baby apparently in a hurry to win the “First Child of 1979 Born in Decatur County, Iowa Award” which I did after my mother’s twenty-minute rapid-fire delivery. That I was delivered by Doc Nelson ten days into January tells you the population size of Decatur County. A perfectly timed birth by me and Mom. I beat out the next kid, one Jacque White, by at least sixteen hours. No bad blood as Jacque and I still send birthday greetings to this day. For the victor the spoils were a one-hundred-dollar savings bond, claimed and saved by my new parents until sometime in the early eighties when I was old enough to spend it all on baseball cards and arcade video games.