Resolutions fit for a brand new year

By NEILA M. ELIASON

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 26, 2000

Things I resolve not to do:

1. Make lasagna. It takes all day and it isn't worth the effort.

2. Permit cafe waitpersons to address me as "You guys."

Things I will do:

1. My 10-minute cleaning project: On Saturday mornings, I assign myself one drawer or cupboard, set the timer for 10 minutes and go for it. Think how much junk I'll get rid of in a year.

2. Swim to Key West -- in the North Shore swimming pool in St. Petersburg. A mile a day, three or four days a week gives me about 150 miles since January. I figure I'm just south of Naples.

Pat Tullman, 63, is on the same team as I -- Maverick Masters Swim Team. She lives in Valrico, near Brandon. The Mavericks have team members all over Florida and even as far away as Indianapolis. They work out on their own and then compete at swim meets or do "postal swims."

A retired sixth-grade teacher, Tullman helped run children's swim meets when she was younger and was impressed with swimming "because you are competing against yourself."

At an early swim meet, she saw a man on the deck in an old overcoat, crushed hat and slippers. "I looked at him and thought, "He's a flasher.' "

Sure enough, he flashed -- wearing his swim trunks under the coat. Then he got in the pool and swam a 200 fly.

At age 70, that is pretty darn good.

At the same meet, a young man with one leg got up on the blocks and dove in. She was impressed with these two and many others who inspired her.

Since she does not have a coach on deck, Tullman says she e-mails the Maverick team coach, Paul Hutinger, in St. Petersburg, and asks questions. She also uses Swim magazine, which has information and workouts, and finds those helpful.

Tullman has access to two pools and swims four or five days a week for an hour, doing between 1,800 and 2,400 yards, or meters.

Her New Year's resolution: "I saw an ad for a community-service training class in being a mediator, which piqued my interest. I think I'd be a good mediator. I've always thought I would like to have been a judge in another life."

Donald Pouttu, 72, is another one of my swim buddies. A retired St. Petersburg Municipal Marina dockmaster, he swims with the Swim to Stay Fit group, which is non-competitive.

At 16, he took the lifesaving course. The instructor, he says, "was a big, strapping fellow, and there were men in the class who were afraid of him. He would get into the water with them and take them down. I was just a string bean of a guy and said to myself, "If I pass this class, I've got nothing to worry about.' "

Later he worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor. By 1946, he was a Navy weather forecaster in New Jersey and then was sent to Panama. They did not need a weather forecaster.

"What else can you do?" he was asked.

"Well, I'm a swimming instructor," he said. "So my Navy uniform was swim trunks and a baseball cap," he says, laughing.

Today the lean and ebullient swimmer does a mile in about an hour, including time to chat with friends at the pool.

"There is something about the water," he says. "You can stretch out. It gets my day off to a good start."

It also relaxes some arthritic pain. His New Year's resolution is: "Not lose the gains I've made in fitness."

Peter Betzer, 58, is a water professional. As acting dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida, water is his business.

He's at the North Shore Pool with the big St. Petersburg Masters Swim Team at 5:30 a.m., four or five days a week, swimming 11/2 or 2 miles each day.

He started swimming when he was 4 or 5 years old at a lake in Wisconsin. He's still swimming for several reasons.

"I really like the group of people. The challenge of staying in shape and staying fit gets bigger and bigger every year," he says.

"I guess swimming is the cheapest life insurance policy that I have. It's a good counterpoint to all the other pressures that we experience."

Betzer has no New Year's resolutions this year. He's still reminiscing about New Year's Eve 2000. He was in Paris and rang in the millennium within sight of the Eiffel Tower as the fireworks were going off.

"It was awesome!" he says.

- Write to Niela M. Eliason in care of Seniority, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731; or send e-mail to Niela@prodigy.net

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