Flashes of Panic

There was a sign on the College pool door this morning with exam-week hours, which can be boiled down to, “Only open while I’m at work.” Exam week is next week, so today was the last morning I’ll be swimming there for a while. Sometime in the summer they will have afternoon hours I can sometimes make, but for now, no.

Later today, I saw a terse “in memoriam” note on the College’s website for “Henry Dunbar ‘44.” If I have my connections right, that was “Hank” Dunbar, the swim coach when I arrived at the College. My brother, who swam in the same conference, knew him as the coach who walked the deck with his pant-legs rolled up and gum-boots on. The collection of photos and All-American plaques in the upper gallery of the pool is named The Dunbar Gallery now, so I have been swimming under his name for a while now; unless things have changed, the crew has a boat named for him as well, since he was a former coach of that team.

I don’t think I ever talked to Hank, but my first-year roommate, a swimmer, was recruited by him and was sad to see him retire after that first season. He was a strong personality, for certain.