HTA-0616: Lynn Sherr — Swim: Why We Love the Water

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Summary

Henry interviews veteran journalist Lynn Sherr about her book 'Swim' and the human connection to water.

Full Transcript

00:00
Hey, coming up on Cron4 News Weekend.

00:03
Wait a minute, why am I doing it?

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We have a trained professional journalist here, Lynn Shearer.

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You do the tease, okay?

00:09
Okay, okay.

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So, do you like to swim or think you'd like to swim

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or know someone who likes to swim?

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I've written a new book, it's called Swim: Why We Love the Water.

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Stay tuned.

00:21
Lynn Shearer, coming up Cron4 News Weekend.

00:25
Great.

00:28
welcome back to cron4news weekend so uh she has like lord byron swum the hellespont

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she has spent a great deal of her time in the water she has won medals and by the way she

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happens to be a an award-winning journalist lynn share of abc's 2020 is now author lynn

00:50
share author of the book called swim and she has begged us to please show the cover which hey lila

00:56
that cover please let his nose well you know what i i get to say this because i didn't design it it

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is the most spectacular look at that it is the most spectacular cover you have to admit seriously

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it is it is a provocatively beautiful cover it really is it says everything about the book i

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wanted it to say which is the joy of swimming the beauty of it so why would you after all those years

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as a journalist you know doing hard serious suddenly yeah suddenly talk about sticking your

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body in the water because i only write books about things i'm passionate about and this is one of

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You know, I did a book about giraffes.

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I did a book about Susan B. Anthony.

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This is something I really care about.

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And I like owning a subject.

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I like finding out all about it.

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And swimming to me is, it's magical.

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It soothes me.

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It calms me.

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It gets me excited.

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It's a wonderful full body massage.

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It's the cheapest antidepressant in the world.

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I just love being in the water.

01:48
Okay.

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What's amazing, though, is that you've managed to tease out a whole book from the fact that you like getting wet.

01:53
Yes.

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There are a lot of aspects to swimming.

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that really are quite remarkable.

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So just for starters,

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tell us about the amazing quests you have gone on.

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Well, when I decided to do the book,

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and I wanted to do the history of swimming,

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and I've got all that quirky stuff.

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What the heck is the history of swimming?

02:09
Oh, the history.

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We'll start there.

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The history's great.

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There was not one of those

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who ate the first oyster moment.

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Swimming has always been with us.

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There are cave paintings of swimmers, prehistory.

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There are several Egyptian hieroglyphs of swimmers.

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Julius Caesar was a well-known, renowned, strong swimmer.

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Saved the empire once by swimming across the water.

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Chairman Mao.

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Chairman Mao was a swimmer.

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Political moment when Chairman Mao swam in the Yangtze.

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Putin's a big swimmer.

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And we've had presidential swimmers.

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Gerald Ford was a wonderful swimmer.

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President John Quincy Adams, way back when,

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used to skinny dip in the Potomac every day.

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And almost died.

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And almost died once, almost drowned.

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And Mrs. Adams was not amused.

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He did not swim again.

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And then we have the fact that there was a White House indoor swimming pool built for FDR, who, of course, had polio.

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This was his only form of exercise.

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Used by JFK for swimming and other things, we're told.

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And then it was bricked over and made into a press room on top of it by, ironically, Richard M. Nixon.

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So we now have a press room.

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And at the end where you always see the press secretary and the members of the administration talking,

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That is located directly over the deep end.

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See, I think swimming is just a metaphor for life.

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And bathing suits, big fashion issue.

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The bikini was a major factor.

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Well, women, women in bathing suits, we used to have to cover most of our bodies.

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Remember the old bathing suits?

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Women were bloomers.

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I have a picture in the book of a policeman measuring the distance between the bottom of a woman's bathing skirt and her knee because you shouldn't have too much flesh showing.

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Lynch here has managed to make swimming into a remarkable chronicle of history and of personal involvement and of personal achievement.

03:59
Lynch here, thank you so much. It's been great meeting you.

04:02
Thanks, Henry. Love it.

04:02
We're taking a break. When we come back, we're doing a bit of a change.

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We're going to be talking about health in Alameda County. You're watching Cron4 News Weekend.