Making Waves. Chris Epting

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      In my head, the decision was easy. Swimming the 100, I would have two chances to make it onto the international team. I told this to Flip, and he agreed that it was the way to go.

      There was just one problem. “I know Shirley doesn’t have a passport,” Flip said to my mother. “We’ll have to take care of that, because I really think she’s going to make this team. Their plane leaves for Europe the day after the race, so we have to get the passport today. We’ve got a plane ticket for her to fly over to New Orleans this afternoon with another swimmer. He needs a passport, too, and they’ll get that done and then fly right back to Texas.”

      So that’s what we did. One of the coaches dropped us off at the airport and pushed our tickets into our hands, and we headed off to New Orleans—me, just fourteen years old, and this boy who was a few years older and didn’t seem too thrilled about having to take a plane ride with me. He wouldn’t talk to me or even look at me, while I followed him around like a little puppy.

      The whole trip was such a blur. We landed in the Crescent City and took a taxi to the passport office. When I think about it today, it seems kind of crazy that they would just let us go get passports on our own. But that’s just how it was back then. Nobody made a big deal out of it at all. It was just like, go get your passports and get back as fast as possible. Someone had called ahead to the passport office to let them know we were coming, so at least they were waiting for us. The boy got his passport, no problem. But I didn’t have an ID, and it seemed like that was going to be an issue.

      We were sitting in this hot, cramped office, waiting and waiting. The air was so incredibly thick down there, both outside and inside, and the two of us just sat there perspiring like a couple of animals. We watched the clock on the wall tick and tick and tick for more than an hour. Finally, the man who was helping us came back into the room with a smile on his face. He was holding a passport with my name and face on it.

      “You’re a lucky little lady,” he said to me. “I didn’t think you were going to be leaving with this today. This required some really special help. You have no idea how far up the ladder we had to go to get your passport. This had to be approved by someone very important.”

      “Who had to approve it?” I asked.

      “The president,” he said.

      “The president of what?” I asked.

      “The United States,” he told me.

      I had no idea if Nixon had in fact been consulted. I just knew that I finally had a passport, and now the glum teenage boy and I could head back to the airport.

      We arrived safely back in Texas, and I went to bed dreaming about a chance at that international team. This was it, I thought. This was a chance to be a part of something really special and see places around the world that I’d only heard about in school. Before leaving for New Orleans, I had heard somebody say that the team was going to Russia. Just the word “Russia” seemed like another planet to me. Given my heritage, I was especially curious.

      This kind of trip was beyond my wildest imagination. It was hard to fall asleep at night, just thinking about the possibilities. I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself, though. I still had to make the team.

      The next day, I couldn’t wait to get to the pool. I packed my bag before we left the hotel because, either way, I was headed someplace else after the races. It was either going to be home, or the other side of the world.

      There was plenty of rain that day, including one monsoon cloud that parked itself right above our heads at the pool. It rained just about as hard as I’ve ever seen in my life. All of the swimmers and coaches were running around, freaking out over the sheets of water pouring down. But Flip said to me, “Shirley, just ignore the weather and focus on what you have to do. Just focus. You can do this.”

      The storm ended after a while, but everybody was still talking about the rain. In my head I was thinking, how can they not be thinking about their races right now? Why are they getting so obsessed with a thunderstorm? I knew where my head was. I was thinking about water, but not the stuff coming down from the sky. All I was concerned about was the water in the swimming pool and how long it would take me to swim through it.

      At one point, while Flip was giving me my rubdown, he noticed an overhanging tarp that had filled with water and looked about ready to give way. “Let’s move over a bit,” he said. Moments later, it crashed down, dumping gallons of water right where I had been standing. An omen?

      When it was time for my race, I was on edge. There was so much at stake here, more than I had ever been swimming for. When the starting gun went off, I knew that I had made a decent start, but after that there was no way to know how I was doing. The 100 is so crazy and there is so much splashing that it’s hard to tell what’s happening. I had a sick feeling that I was not in the top two, and when I touched the wall at the end, I was all but sure that I had come in third. I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn’t even look at the scoreboard.

      Oh well, I thought, there would be other times. At least, I hoped there would be.

      When I saw Flip running over to me, I appreciated that he was smiling and that he was there to cheer me up. He was that kind of guy.

      Flip knelt down by the edge of the pool and said, “You did it, Shirley. You got second place. You made the team.”

      I had actually done it.

      That night, my mom said goodbye to me and gave me twenty dollars of spending money. I’d never had that much money in my pocket. I think she was happy for me. I mean, I hoped that she was happy for me. The hard part was that I couldn’t tell her I was going to miss her, because I wasn’t. I was just so happy to be spreading my wings and getting away from my parents.

      Still, I gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye, and then off I went the next morning on the bus with twenty-six other swimmers, three coaches, and two chaperones.

      We would be visiting Russia, East Germany, West Germany, and Denmark, among other places. As the plane rumbled down the runway and we lifted off from Houston, my mind began dreaming about what it would be like. I knew we’d be swimming over there, but I was more intrigued with the idea of travel and exploration. What would it be like? What would the people sound like? This was going to be so exciting.

      On the plane we also learned that we were all going to receive a “per diem.” I had no idea what that was. Gary Hall, who I swam with at the Huntington Beach Aquatic Club, explained it to me.

      “It’s spending money, Shirley,” he said. “We are given spending money each day.”

      “For what?” I asked.

      “Whatever you want,” he said.

      To me, that was simply the coolest thing ever. Gary was such a doll and I really appreciated how he kind of looked after me on that trip. He was a few years older and had already won a silver medal at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City for his second place finish in the 400-meter individual medley. Two years after that, he broke the world record in the 200-meter butterfly. I was just so impressed by him.

      Before getting to Russia, we stopped over at Shannon Airport in Ireland. I distinctly remember seeing all of the wonderful green colors СКАЧАТЬ