My father was born in 1911 and was a high school and college swimmer from 1925 to 1933 (Dartmouth record holder in the 150-yard backstroke, as he liked to point out), so it is natural that he was well versed in all the competitions—even the odd and obscure ones—having to do with his sport. Of these, one of his favorites was the Plunge. I fondly remember him demonstrating it to my brother Michael and me when we were boys, and then encouraging us to try it.

Note the form, would-be plungers!!

The Plunge was a simple event. You dove from the side of the pool and then tried to see how far you could float, without moving arms or legs, in 60 seconds. As I recall, the first part of the event was fun but the last 20 or so seconds were incredibly uneventful as, with your forward propulsion depleted, you basically floated in place until time was up (or you ran out of breath).

It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the Plunge had been a very popular event in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and indeed had been an Olympic event in the London Games of 1904. It cannot have been much of a spectator sport. Because competitors tended to drift sideways as well as forward (and perhaps even backward), they dove into the pool one by one rather than as a group. According to accounts of the day, the fatter you were, the better the chance you had of winning. It’s hard to imagine the Plunge in the age of the Speedo.

In any case, it’s one of the those rare Olympic events that you can picture yourself doing fairly well in. For reference, William Dickey of the New York Athletic Club was the gold medal winner in London (there were only five competitors), floating 62 feet six inches in the allotted time. It’s an Olympic record that stands to this day because the event was never a part of subsequent Olympiads. The world record of 80 feet was set in 1912 by University of Pennsylvania plunger S.B. Willis.

The NCAA dropped the Plunge as a college event in 1925, but maybe it’s time to bring it back. There’s a peaceful manatee-like quality to the Plunge, and none of the thrashing through the water that’s associated with other swimming events. In fact, it’s one of the few sports that allows you to compete and bask at the same time. You might give it a try yourself the next time you’re at the pool.

Candy? Trilobite fossil? Only tasting will tell.

After seven straight days of rain the weather finally cleared today and I went out into the woods. The ground was very damp, a good time to look under logs. I love to roll the logs over in late spring and watch the bugs skitter for cover. Today, though, when I rolled one log I noticed that several particularly ugly and disgusting little beetles didn’t move. I looked at them more closely and soon realized that what I had before me were either long-dead trilobites or English hard candies. In the spirit of science, I picked one up, bit through the brittle shell, chewed into the spurting soft center and swallowed, The taste? The taste was not merely stale, but millions of years old, the taste of time passing, of ennui itself, yet not without a wicked hint of mothballs. Question: What were English hard candies doing under a log in the woods near my house?

I was always an early riser as a boy, even on Saturday mornings—or maybe especially on Saturday mornings. The house was quiet as I rushed downstairs to the den, where our television was located. In those days, we could only get one channel clearly, Channel 8 from New Haven (originally Channel 6). I don’t think Hartford’s Channel 3 was on the air yet, and even after it did join the modest lineup, our reception of it was iffy. As for New York channels, we could only pick them up, briefly and unreliably, during atmospheric oddities, such as increased sunspot activity or the transit of Venus.

In any event, I’d get downstairs and turn on the set, and this is usually what I got to see:

It’s called a test pattern. In the days when TV channels did not run programming for 24 hours, they put up the pattern during the period (usually in the middle of the night) when they were off the air. So, depending on how early I was awake, I’d watch the test pattern for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, even a half-hour. The image was accompanied by a high-pitched tone that I still associate with boredom, impatience and anxiety. And then abruptly at 6 a.m., the test pattern would disappear, replaced by an image of a waving American flag and the playing of The National Anthem, which would signal the beginning of the broadcasting day. Real viewing would next commence with 15 minutes of union propaganda called “Industry on Parade,” an episode of “The American Farmer” or the early, early show I remember most fondly, a cartoon called “Crusader Rabbit.”

The thing is, as much as I happily recall Crusader, Rags the Tiger and their doings down in Gallahad Glen, it’s the test pattern that has stayed with me most clearly—and that I appreciate today for its unique blend of art and implied technology. Take a look at the test patterns collected here and tell me they aren’t beautiful, mysterious and high-tech all at the same time. If I had Jasper Johns’ talent, I’d bag the American flags and paint test patterns instead.