NAPA Archives

(a scattered history of Napa swimming)

Napa 100 Under Way  OTHG

After two weeks of sweat, dedication and commitment the Napa 100 is off and running (err. swimming).  Big Jim's boys have already stroked their way south  down I-380 , taking a temporary break at the Iowa City pool for a cool dip and then heading  east down I-80 passing Herbert Hoovers birthplace. Thus far, they have covered 41 miles since departing from the pancake breakfast at the Cedar Rapids YMCA. Aiming for the mighty Mississippi by this week-end are  swimmers:
     Jurt & NAD
     Cookie
     Boa Wilson
     Bagger Vance Mckay
     Mike Burrows & Little Brucer.

They hope to be soon joined by:

Jelly Roll, Dr. Deluxe, Crunch, Timmy, Davy,
Red Savage, Wenky (of course)
Danny Cilek, Bill Klahn, Bill Fowler
Tripper, and Otterman (of course)

OTHG  81 miles

Head'in for the Mighty Mississippi

As far as the OTHG:  we are on our way.  We have swum 81 miles and have
officially just passed the Brady St. exit on I-80 north of Davenport.  For those
of you who can remember, that is the exit we took to the Davenport meet.  It was
usually the first swim meet of the year.  Some of us can probably remember a lot
of funny memories from there.

As for who is in and who is out-I heard from the following:

Billy Bob reported in and swam 1,200 yards and will become an active member
early in July.  Dr. Deluxe, however is shelved as he begins his taper for The
other Team in Ft. Lauderdale.  Not really!  He is hurting with tendonitis and
rotator cuff problems and is hoping to be back from vacation and PT by July
10th.  I hope he isn't too down in the mouth.  Get well, buddy.  Wild Bill
Fowler is also hurting or on vacation, but vows to be back in the water by July
4th.  And finally, the King has corrected the yardage.  His goal is to swim
3,000 yards a week.  So far he has 5,500 and behind pace by 500 yards.  Sorry
Cookie, I reasonably thought that you only did 750 yards the first week.  So,
here is who is still not been located or made a commitment:  (in other words
these are the folks who haven't enough yardage to beat "the King", much less
Finley the Wonder Puppy"...

Jelly Belly - why are you skipping practice?
Dr. D. is injured beyond belief.
Crunch and Bell must be having a party in IC?
Davy is in, but still having e-mail trouble (I guess)
The Red Savage must have been kicked out of the pool by the lifeguards, again?
Billy Bob is in and Wild Bill Fowler is trying to get in.
Wenky and Otterman...Will they ever show up on time or after Labor Day?
Tripper and Stods-who loves ya, man?
And Danny Cilek, plus brother Nick..The park pool and Mercer are open for the
summer?

FOTO  320 miles 

As a Super Team, in our effort to swim from Boca Raton Fl. to Seattle to see Davy, we are well on the way!  I hope all of you enjoyed our overnight stay in Orlando as we sped through last week and are currently in Gainesville Florida. We have swum as a Team - 320 miles to date.  That is a bunch for us.  Special Thanks to Vicki Dewey who keeps cranking out over 4,000 yards a day, to Yoko whose doing 3,000 yards a day and pushing the Boca Man, and a welcome to Nick's(NAD) friends from Iowa (Barry, D. Green, and JOCK).  Those Milky Way folks are up the water at a rate of almost 10,000 yards per day.  Make certain to thank them for us Nick.  Do you have any more friends?  I expect a lot more, as we haven't yet heard from Larry and Ed, nor Debbie and her clan Debbie did call and said she and her husband Denny won 12 medals in the Senior Olympics meet held in Kansas.  To heck with the medals!  Make certain you count the yardage.)  Another new member, recently engaged and a good friend of mine Sari, from Canada, added her yardage of almost 3,000 yards per day.  I think withYoko and Sari, we are clearly International.  It also appears that Finley (the 8 week old Lab from Boca) will soon have some competition in the form of Hobie from Kansas.  Anybody else have some pets that might join in. Finley has a lead
of 35 yards on Hobie (who is also a Lab).  The bottom line is that the yards are growing thanks to almost all of you.  If you haven't sent in your yards, (let me be clear) WE NEED THEM!  We can make it and if my suspicions are correct, we should be out of Florida by the time the others submit their yardage.  On to Atlanta and Nashville

Over The Hill Gang (OTHG) 

swimming from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Fort Lauderdale, Florida

423,367 yards or  241 miles 

OTHG Up-Date:

All right you grizzled veterans of yesteryear.  I certainly got excited last
week as we circled Davenport and headed toward Springfield, Ill.  My best guess
at to where we are is in Lincoln, about 30 miles north of SPRINGFIELD (THE HOME
OF OUR FIRST NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP for Big Jim) and 15.6% of our goal of
swimming to Ft. Lauderdale.  I was kind of hoping that we would make it this
week, but that will have to wait.  I was kind of hoping that a few more of use
would put down the excuses and join in?  And some did!  One of our most senior
leaders, Jamey, donned his double Speedos and gave us two efforts of 500 and
1,000 yards.  It's good to have the King of Butterfly back with us.  Speaking of
the KING, he exceeded his weekly objective by 20%, and so did the Boa from New
Mexico.  If you want to keep up with Cookie, you better get going.  Jurt, Mike
Burrows, Debbie C.and I keep grinding it out, but the efforts by Boca Vance and
the NAD-ster have exceeded all expectations.  There are only nine of us in the
pool.  Some have excuses, but others are letting something keep them from
trying.  ???  I expect a lot of you should unload on your missing friends as
soon as you finish this e-mail.  Wenky and Rick, I am starting to take this
personally.  Tripper, Stods, Glen Pro, Pink Savage, Mummey, Sprattster, and
others too numerous to mention, don't make us start throwing kickboards.

Friends of Over The Hill Gang (FOTO) 

(includes OTHG yardage)

swimming from Boca Raton, Florida to Seattle, Washington

  963,166 yards!  547.3 miles 

FOTO Swim Across America Up-date:

This is your weekly up-date and you should be proud (if you are swimming with
us).  And, if you are cheering us on, or too proud to report your yardage, or
haven't made it into the water, please feel free to jump in and start stroking
with us.  We are picking up steam and are just outside of Atlanta, at Macon
Georgia.  I think we rested Sunday at the Ocmulgee National Monument (whatever
that is?  Sounds like something a coach might say after looking at their
stop-watch?).  There are 39 of us (including Finley-the wonder puppy) actively
swimming and we are close to breaking the 1 million yard barrier,  To-date we
have recorded 963,166 yards!  547.3 miles!  And we are 16.7% of our way toward
our goal of swimming to Seattle.

Some of you have not responded this week (or forever) and we look forward to
hearing from you.  Who knows, we might really be in Atlanta at the Kennesaw
Mountains National Battlefield Park and not even know it.  And, for those of you
who are recruiting more swimmers, please do not stop.  Our weekly record is
170.1 miles, and we should/could break it this next week with a little effort.
We need a lot more mileage and we could use more swimmers.  Do not let the
National borders contain you.  We have Yoko from Japan, Sari from Canada (and
newly engaged), plus Grant in South Africa swimming with us.  I am working on
getting a Navy Seal to join up.  Heck my non-swimming wife gave us 1,000 yards
kicking last week for the cause.  And a special "thank you" to the children of
some of us who are helping their Dads reach their goal.  Swimming alone is
really boring.  So thanks again to all of you.  I would have never made it to
the pool on several occasions last week, if I didn't know you were waiting for
me.

Over The Hill Gang (OTHG) 

swimming from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Fort Lauderdale, Florida

 Celebrating in St. Louis for the Fourth

Friends of Over The Hill Gang (FOTO) 

(includes OTHG yardage)

swimming from Boca Raton, Florida to Seattle, Washington

794   miles in the Heartland of Tennessee 

Good Morning Fellow Swimmers and Floaters!

There is good news and better news!  Concerning the Combined Teams of OTHG and
FOTO's, we are almost 25% of the Way to Seattle.  We have swum 794 combined
miles and are currently floating somewhere between Manchester and Murfreesboro,
Tennessee.  That is the Good News.  The even Better News is that a lot of our
veteran volume yardage getters have not e-mailled in their yardage yet.  I bet
we fly through Nashville by the time everyone reports in from this Fourth Of
July holiday.  The Pros from Jersey have not been sighted yet, and neither has
Debbie C. and her bevy of swimmers.  Hats off to all of us, but especially to
Vicky D. and John C. who have swum almost 140 miles between them.  We love ya!
I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome another Swimming Star to
the effort, Sara J. from Houston.  She and Vicky have awesome workouts at
Westside in Houston, which leave a lot of us swimming in their wake.  In terms
of the FIDO effort (Swimming K-9's) it appears we have 4 potential contestants,
with only Hobbie and Finley swimming a combined 1,360 yards to date.  Finley is
still after me about how to earn double credit for the 200 Fly if he can only do
doggie paddle?  Them's the breaks goggle-pouchie.  Everyone else has to do it.
That is except Nick Gearheart out of Cedar Rapids who took this volume incentive
to the extreme and swam 800 yards fly, expecting 1600 for his effort.  Hmmm?  By
the way, we all are the same in this effort and the July Fourth one time volume
incentive is open to FOTO's and FIDO's if you can swim the 200 Fly without
stopping.  Good Luck to ALL!  You can do it Yessiree!

OTHG Up-Date:

Man things are looking good in that Red Savage has reported in and is now
swimming with the Sharks and Rays in La Jolla for the cause.  Glad he made the
party.  The Cookster continues to swim away in CR and was sighted at a Noelridge
workout.  Unfortunately, The NAD was not there to heap it on the old man!  This
week Cookie is in Phoenix and will be seeing Timmy about getting in the Pool at
the Ritz for a few lengths for old times sake.  Heck, it is only 112 degrees and
I don't think Robbie will have a difficult time.  Danny Cilek was sighted
swimming in Iowa City at the Park Pool by my brother when he was home.  Boca
Vance continues to lead us in yardage, followed by NAD,  Boa, Jurt, Debbie C.
My swimming will remain a mystery, but pales in comparison.  The bottom line is
that we are in St. Louis for the Fourth and should be headed toward Paducah KY
by the morning.  It is anticipated that we should run into ourselves streaking
out of Florida next week, maybe in Clarksville Tennessee.  That would be
something.  Maybe if we hurry, we can catch the last Train to Clarksville and
avoid having to swim all of the way?

Finally, I would like to share a piece that was sent to me from Billy Bob Klahn.
It is a reminder and a feeling that we all have in the OTHG for a guy who
treated us pretty fine.  After seeing the movie "Tuesdays with Morrie" last
night, there was a line that said something like, "Just because you die only
means a life ends, the relationships never have to end."  Take it away Bill.

I sometimes wonder what jim would think. I will never forget the smell of
viceroys and the smell of chlorine intermingled with a sport I will always love,
old shoulders not withstanding. Is he looking over us with pride, or
does he want to fling a kickboard at the cookster's head? If he is, it is with
pride, and he is even proud of our old age and our tribute to the great man that
he was, no, he still is, because he is in our minds, and in our hearts, and will
never be forgotten. Jim Gilchrist will live forever, as long as we can tell his
tale and live up to his  expectations. He would be proud of us, and to me, that
means a lot..... billybob

On to Paducah!  Jamey where are you?  Wenky get wet!  Crunch and Jim Bell, the
time is now.  Cileks unite!  Guys we won't make it if you don't try.  Some one
go fix Davy's computer.  Next motivational message should be Friday.

Keep smiling, Rollie

WEEK 6 and 7

Computer melt down in  The Florida Gold Coast

Web Master Rob McKay