State Records and Mr. Ashby

It was terribly early to get up. I mean, I didn’t mind getting up early on school days, but 3:00 A.M. on a Saturday was awful. I had to be in Iowa City at 8:00 A.M. The Iowa High School Girls State Swim Meet started at 9:00 A.M. in the new University of Iowa Field House. It was exciting to be competing in such a magnificent pool. Built in 1927, it was the largest indoor swimming pool in the whole United States; some said even in the world. A more perfect place for me to set some girls’ swimming records was unimaginable.

Burnie’s father had bought a Ford Model T Sedan last summer, so he offered to take us there. It was a real fancy car. It had three foot pedals; there were two forward speeds and one reverse speed. Burnie told me his father spent almost $700.00 for it. I guess he could make that kind of money working all those long hours at the Bankers Life Insurance Company. The Orwigs knew it would save us the train fare and the cost of staying overnight. Burnie had such a kind family and they never made us feel like they were giving us charity. They knew Dad was working very hard.

It worked out well that I was not diving any more. The diving part of the state meet was held on Friday, and the girls got out of school for the day. If I had still been a diver, we would have had to stay overnight in Iowa City and probably not been able to afford that expense. I had been competing in diving and swimming my freshman year at North. I practiced all the time on the high-dive platform at the Birdland pool, which was close to our house. Then, I began having more and more trouble with my hearing. The doctor told my parents that I had to give up diving. He was certain it was making my hearing worse. None of us wanted that to happen. My hearing aid was costly and I was not going to make it so my parents had to buy me a new one. The doctor said I could keep swimming, but only in the backstroke because the starting position in that event is in the pool. I didn’t have to dive into the pool to compete in the backstroke.

Iowa City was 115 miles east of Des Moines. Mr. Orwig said he wanted to allow three and a half to four hours for the drive - if everything went well. He had already taken the car out west to Omaha, which was about the same distance as Iowa City. He reassured us that it was an easy trip and there was a lot of beautiful scenery. The weather had been quite dry, so mud and ruts would not be problems. There were more and more cars on the roads all the time and the state was trying to get the routes all marked with highway markers. Communities between all the stops on the roads were taking better care of them and service stations where you could buy gasoline were popping up in the towns along the way.

This car was big, shiny, and black. The weather was crisp and cool when we got out of the house and into the back seat. There were seats for five people, so with me, Burnie, Mother, and Mr. and Mrs. Orwig in the car, it was full.

There were three possible routes between Des Moines and Iowa City. We could take either Whiteway-7-Highway, the Detroit-Lincoln-Denver Highway, or the River to River Route. Mr. Orwig chose the River-to-River route.

He said, “If it was good enough for the military during the Big War, it’s good enough for me.”

It kind of made me feel patriotic driving on it. However, leaving at 4:00 A.M. in the morning made me feel less than energetic for the swim races ahead of me. It was dark but later we would be driving into the sunrise. Mother told me to close my eyes and try to sleep a little. She and Mrs. Orwig even brought pillows. Mother was sitting between me and Burnie in the back seat, so each of us had a window to lean on. I don’t know who went to sleep first, but I know we both slept until we got to the turn-off for Cedar Rapids. We were almost to Iowa City!

“You packed my swim bag, right Mother?”

“Yes, dear. If you remember, we packed the car last night before dark, just to be sure we would not forget anything so early in the morning.”

I was waking up fast and replied, “Oh sure, I remember now. Boy, I’d better focus and get ready to swim!”

Burnie chimed in, “You’d better focus and get ready to WIN, Mable! Right, everyone?”

Mrs. Orwig turned around a bit in the front seat and answered over her shoulder, “You will have us all cheering for you, and for the other North girls, Mable. We are all so proud of you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Orwig. And thank you, Mr. Orwig, for taking your whole Saturday driving us all the way over here.” I took a brave deep breath and added, “The only thing that would make it better would be if Burnie was going on the tour with us. I know you went to Purdue and so Burnie wants to go to Purdue, too, but Indiana is so far away! Maybe he could go to Iowa State instead. I asked the counselor at North and he said Iowa State has a really good engineering program. It sure is a lot closer.”

Both Burnie and his father smiled, but there was no verbal response, so I dropped that subject. At least I had tried!

For the next ten minutes, the Orwigs talked on and on about how great Purdue was, and Burnie kept saying he was so excited to go there. The Purdue baseball coach had written the North High coach a letter about Burnie’s pitching and had come to watch him pitch last spring. I realized it was way too late to stop Burnie from leaving the state to go to college, so I was just going to have to decide to be happy for him, like a best friend should.

It meant a lot, though, when Burnie added, “You know, Mable, the reason I became interested in engineering in the first place was all the conversations I had with your dad over the past couple of years, about all the buildings he works on. I learned all about different kinds of engineering, and now I’ve decided to be a chemical engineer. No insurance business for me, like my dad does. It’s engineering that has my attention, thanks to your dad.”

It felt good to have Burnie respect my dad. We were getting close to campus and I had to start to think only about the races, but there was so much more to the day that just swimming. I was entering my future.

It was going to be a busy day. All the races were supposed to be done by three o’clock. My last race, the medley, was scheduled for two o’clock. The meets were usually not run completely on time, but I was hoping this one was close, because we had an appointment to take a campus tour at four o’clock. The swimming coach and leader of the Seals Club, Miss Camp, was going to come along with a person from the Admissions Office on the tour. We would be seeing the dormitories, journalism building, Memorial Union, and the Old Capitol. I would have already seen the gym and pool. I was really hoping Miss Camp and the Athletic Director would see at least one of my races. This was all so exciting; the more I thought about how important it all was, the more I started missing Dad.

When we got to the pool every thought I had about anything else was gone. It was all about swimming then. The meet started with a flag ceremony and the national anthem, and then the racing began. I had to stay warmed up between the different heats and races, so I had no time at all to go visit with Mother or Burnie and his parents. They were good fans; I could see them in the balcony that was over the pool, cheering for all the girls from North in every race.

The individual event qualifying heats were first, then the relays and medleys. The preliminaries were in the morning and the finals started at noon. There was a lot of swimming to pack into the one-day meet, so they did not even take a lunch break. We just had to grab a bite to eat between our races. I didn’t feel like eating much anyway, but I went up to the balcony one time to grab half of one of the sandwiches that Mrs. Orwig had packed. The large balcony circled all the way around the upper level of the pool area. They had a perfect view of all the action.

In the morning, I had the fastest time in the 40-yard backstroke preliminaries and in the 100-yard backstroke preliminaries as well. I was in great shape to try for some state record times in the afternoon. Just as the announcer was calling for the finalists in the 40-yard backstroke finals to report, I glanced up at Burnie and my parents. Burnie was making exaggerated pointing gestures to the section to the right of where they were sitting. The Athletic Director and the Seals Club coach were both sitting over there! That was really going to give me an edge in the race. Here was my chance to prove I had the goods and deserved some scholarship money from the university.

“Go, Mable. Go!” I thought I could hear Burnie cheering, even without my hearing aids. I’m sure he was yelling louder than it sounded to me, but it felt swell. The starter gun went off, I pushed hard away from the edge of the pool and flew backwards down my lane. I won easily with a time of 27.3 seconds. It was a state record! The girls on the team swarmed around me as I got out of the pool. I looked up at the time on the race clock on the wall and realized I had achieved the first of my goals for the day. How proud my dad would be was the next thought that came to me.

The 100-yard finals were a carbon copy of the first race. Fans cheering from the balcony, and I could hear Burnie’s voice above them all. The University of Iowa folks were still in the stands to see this race, and I set another state record, with a time of 1 minute 22 seconds. I could hardly wait to tell Dad!

One of the last events was the 400-yard medley. We won but did not set a state record. Still, Coach Mortenson was pleased and proud of our team’s performance for the whole day. We had a few other first place races, as well as several second and third places; we won the over-all state meet title by eight points. It was an exceptional season for the North High Girls Swim Team!

Right after the presentation of the championship trophy to our team, a man with a Des Moines Tribune lapel button came over to me. He said he was Ted Ashby! I started to tell him I had read and enjoyed so many of his baseball articles, but he stopped me and asked, “So, are you the little lady sports editor who is after Sec Taylor’s job?”

Sec Taylor had been Sports Editor of the Register for the past ten years, and I would never think of trying to take his job! I just wanted to be a great sportswriter. That’s what I told Mr. Ashby.

He replied, “Well, little girl, if you can write as well as you can swim, you might just be able to make that happen. I wanted to interview you, but Coach Mortensen says you have to rush to a tour of campus right away. I’m sure Sec would want me to write up something we could put on the front page of the Tribune. You really showed everyone some top-notch swimming today! Maybe I can call you next week and set up a time?”

I had to tell him, “Yes sir. I’m on my way to take a tour of the campus right now. The Seals Club coach and a man from the Admissions Office are waiting at Memorial Union for my mother and me. I really have to hurry.”

“I understand,” he said quickly. “You go on ahead to your tour and I will try to catch up with you Monday in Des Moines.”

“Well, now that girls’ swimming is over, I will be free right after school. My sports writers will be working on the Oracle article for this state meet, but those fellas won’t need me. They’re really good.” With that, we agreed he would telephone me on Monday, and he went over to interview Coach Mortensen.

After meeting up with us at the Memorial Union, Miss Camp and the admissions director, Mr. Cookman, gave all of us a quick tour of the campus. We didn’t have a lot of time to go to all the buildings, and all I really wanted to see were the dorms and the Daily Iowan office, anyway. They seemed impressed that I was the Sports Editor of the North High Oracle, but they kept asking football and basketball questions of me to see if I really knew my sports stuff. Burnie was doing a little bit of laughing at them, behind their backs, because every time they seemed so surprised that I could answer all their questions. One time I saw his mother frown at him for it, but his father was smiling, too. I think they were finally satisfied that I knew what I was talking about when the admissions fella said, “Miss Camp, I think this girl really knows her onions.” Again, I could not wait to tell Dad about that!

The tour was finished, and we walked back to the Admissions Office. Mr. Cookman told Miss Camp that he would let her know when I had finished my application for entrance and then she could talk to the Athletic Director about what kind of financial assistance they could offer me. They were both happy with my grades, too. He kept saying I was going to make a “great Hawkeye,” and even tried a couple of times to convince Burnie not to go to Purdue, but he didn’t have any better luck with that than I did.

We piled back in the car for the drive back to Des Moines. It was going to take a little longer to get home, because Mr. Orwig insisted on stopping along the way at a restaurant to buy us all a celebratory dinner. We did not get home until nearly eleven o’clock that night. It was too late to expect Dad to call like he promised. We probably missed his call. I just hoped he wasn’t worried about us, but I knew he would call tomorrow morning. The phone rates would be lower on Sunday, anyway, so we could talk a few more minutes. I couldn’t wait to hear his voice.