Article 1369
I also remember his friend Clarence Ross ( decked out in his white warmups with all his patches on it) who was a little older than Henry as I recall. In one of my first (or maybe my first) Masters meets in 1978 or so, I took my 9 year old son to the meet at Westfield Y with me and as we walked in the pool area, an old guy was doing backstroke in the outside lane and a number of people with cameras were walking along side him as he swam taking his picture. It turned out to be Clarence who was in the process of breaking the National (or World ?) record for the 50 or 100 yard backstroke. Later in the meet as I prepared to swim an event, I looked over and saw my son ( a 9/10 age group swimmer) talking to Clarence and it was then that I realized that there were no generation gaps amongst competitive swimmers, the 9 year old and the 90 year old were doing the same thing and could share the experience.
Now as a 57 year old Masters swimmer, I share the same experience with my 30 year old (30-34 year old Masters swimmer) son.
Bob Hopkins , 11/25/99
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