EL SEGUNDO HERALD December 8, 2016 Page 9 Aquatics from page 6 Thursday nights were Swim Club nights at the pool and ESHS alumni Don Carter, Jerry “Jiggs” Dessert and Jerry McNulty; Loyola (Jack and Jerry Cunningham); El Camino alumni and walk-ons (Wally Gillies, Bob Weebe and later Dan Drown) would show up to scrimmage the 1947 Swim Club team. We warmed up for a few laps, practiced some passing drills and played with Urho reffing for about an hour. A free-for- all followed with Saari in the water with us. Harry Bisbey had a bad habit of coming up behind you and putting you in a choke hold. He did this to Saari just once. Urho grabbed him below the belt and Harry did not get close again. Harry also diabolically enjoyed hitting his guards in the back of the head with a hard-thrown ball. In St. Louis Jerry McNulty, Jerry Cunningham and Richie “Feed ‘em feet Hoot” Daubenspeck joined the team. For the 1951 games in Buenos Aires, Argentina Bill Zerkie joined. We took third and it was very interesting to see Juan and Eva (all in white) Peron poolside. Guava juice was “Before the Urho Saari Swim Stadium (The Plunge) was built in 1941, El Segundo had an earlier pool. It was located on the south side of Richmond School where the cafeteria is situated today.” served with every meal. Standard Oil’s rep in Argentina was very helpful for us in arrangements. Dinner in Buenos Aires was at nine or 10 and we were guests at a private club where the steaks filled the plate. Surprisingly, Jack Spargo was the only one to finish. In a practice scrimmage in Montevideo, Uruguay, we played in a pool that was so dark you could barely see the end. Their guard had Jack in an underwater death grip most of the game. Jack, in desperation, finally twisted around and came up for air. This was the only time I saw Urho pull a team from the water and leave the pool. Here, Saari caught Dornblaser and Hughes sneaking back in after curfew. The international ball was leather--and halfway through a game, it became waterlogged, heavy, out-of-round and slippery. The Voit rubber ball pioneered by Jimmy Smith improved the game everywhere. In New York in 1952 for the Olympic trials, Bisbey and Spargo had to sit outside the pool. Their hearts could not stand the close score in the championship game. The score was tied with 20 seconds to go and I intercepted a pass and threw the ball to Dornblaser in front of the LA goal. He quickly tossed the ball in the goal to win. Pandemonium broke out among our fans as Saari was ceremoniously dunked. Once on the Olympic team we were moved to a downtown hotel, fitted for our uniforms, marched in a parade and had lunch with the Mayor. Air travel was by prop planes and for the long flight to Ireland, we took off from Gander, Newfoundland before heading to London and finally Helsinki, Finland. We practiced in a pine forest in a new pool that tasted of turpentine. We finished fourth in the 1952 Olympics. Against Italy, the Spanish ref called two major fouls on us and they scored twice while we had a man out. The spectators cried foul and wanted Saari to protest the game, but he would not. The experience of standing with your teammates and others from around the world watching Hans Kohleminen light the Olympic torch in the Olympic Stadium is unequaled in my experience. In 1964 the El Segundo Swim Club – Dan Drown, Chick, Ned and Paul McIlroy, Bob Saari and Ralph Whitney again won the Olympic water polo trials and headed for Tokyo. This team was unusual in a historic sense, for no other Olympic country has had three brothers in the same sport on the same team. In addition, the 1964 team had a father and son as members – Urho and Bob Saari. The El Segundo Swim Club formed in 1947 with Pete Stange as President. The Swim Club continued to compete in SPAAU and national competition. Many of the members also swam for El Camino, USC or UCLA. In each of the above competitions the Swim Club had to raise the funds to participate – $10,000 twice. With business, community and Maury Ward’s Teenagers support, adequate funds were promptly raised. Service clubs like the 20-30 Club with “Squeek” Renfro and Bob Sherrill, as well as the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs repeated their help, along with local businesses (Lloyd Ballmer at the bank, Dexter Benson at the Chamber, RB Drug, Floyd Wallace at the Rose Bowl, Vic McCarthy and Dave Peterson for the City of El Segundo and many more). And Standard Oil was continually a major sponsor. Several times Saari organized an Aquacade fundraiser with stars like Esther Williams, divers Lyle and Vicki Draves and Dr. Sammy Lee, and comedian belly-flopper Wes Hammond. Our own El Segundo Swim Club water ballet group featuring Patty Tracy helped draw big crowds. Seldom mentioned are the wives and girlfriends who made the above participation economically possible--and the women coaches, Wanda Saari and Helen MacDonald. Surprisingly the Swim Club sponsored a women’s water polo scrimmage in 1958. A great fundraiser for The Plunge rehabilitation would be a $100 signature blue tile to be applied in the lobby. After all, how many laps has the Plunge seen – a billion? Today’s Swim Club and Masters participants have a wonderful legacy to uphold—and those blue tiles go by… • Seniors Four Creative Ways to Tackle Rising Health Care Costs When Planning for Retirement (BPT) - No matter how hard you worked needed. If your medical bills have gotten too or how much you saved, the sad reality of high or you can no longer afford to pay the today’s economic landscape is that the rising premiums, consider selling your life insurance cost of health care can quickly eat away at policy through a life settlement. Essentially, your retirement fund. you sell your policy to an investor who usually Health care expenses have inflated to the pays seven to eight times as much as point that the average American couple over the age of 65 will pay $240,000 in medical the cash value of the policy. For many, this can be a quick way to relieve financial strain “Health care expenses have inflated to the point that the average American couple over the age of 65 will pay $240,000 in medical bills, according to AARP.” and deal with health care bills. Consider a reverse mortgage. This is a loan available to homeowners that allows them to convert part of the equity in their homes into cash. The loan is called a “reverse mortgage” because instead of making monthly payments to a lender, as with a traditional mortgage, the lender makes payments to the borrower. The borrower is not required to pay back the loan until the home is sold or otherwise vacated. Buy long term care insurance early. The costs of living in a nursing home or hiring a home caretaker can be staggering. Long term health insurance can be cost prohibitive, and for many healthy individuals, it’s hard to imagine a time when they will be in a situation when they will need full or assisted care. This can make it hard for them to justify paying the premiums. But if you start during your early to mid-50s, you can buy in at a lower rate and defray the expenses that you might not be able to afford. Of all these, many people don’t realize that selling their life insurance is a viable option. In fact, 90 percent of seniors who allowed their policies to lapse without knowing that selling their life insurance was an option, would have considered selling if someone had told them about it. To learn more if this is right for you, visit www.lisa.org. • Film Review from page 7 up and the fun at an all-time high. Although the songs themselves aren’t necessarily as lyrically catchy as a traditional musical, composer Justin Hurwitz creates beautiful, big studio melodies that accompany the lovely throwback visuals we see onscreen. The polished and slick camera movements add to the jazzy, up-tempo energy of the film itself, framing the song and dance scenes wonderfully. From capturing a large and colorful dance ensemble on a freeway overpass in the film’s opening number to a singular shot of Sebastian sitting in the spotlight alone at a piano, cinematographer Linus Sandgren brings the appropriate amount of visceral energy to every moment. The dramatic lighting allows the audience to get lost in the story and is a phenomenal touch to the film’s theatrical cohesiveness. Plus, the decision to shoot on film also adds to the overall sense of spontaneity--not being able to immediately play back the day’s takes, like one could if shooting digitally, demands a certain level of trust in the film’s crew much like how jazz musicians quickly learn how to trust each other while playing. There is a line from the film that has stuck with me, even to this day, “To be a revolutionary, you can’t be a traditionalist.” This seems to speak to Chazelle’s own moviemaking journey and his fervent passion to bring darkly moving musical-based stories to the big screen. La La Land is a throwback film that celebrates the way movies were made and the feelings that came with them, while simultaneously infusing that nostalgia into a glamorized modern Hollywood romance. For all these reasons, La La Land is pure magic and one of the year’s best. La La Land is rated PG-13 for some language. 128 minutes. Opening in select theaters Friday, December 9. • bills, according to AARP. When paired with the sobering statistic that roughly a third of Americans over 65 rely entirely on Social Security for their retirement income, these findings underline an urgent problem that needs to be addressed. Rather than wait for Washington or the health care industry to come up with a solution, many are taking a proactive approach and tackling the problem head on. Often, they succeed through some surprising and unconventional strategies. Make sure to always talk to your trusted financial advisor or other professionals before taking any action, but here are four creative ways you can tackle rising health care costs in your retirement years. Maximize your social security benefits. It might be tempting to start claiming your benefits as soon as you’re eligible, but if you can, wait. The longer you wait, the more you and your spouse will be paid. Especially if you’re currently healthy, try to defer your benefits until you’re 70. If you do, your payments will increase by as much as 75 percent. This will put you in a good position to meet any unexpected costs in the future. Sell your life insurance. Just like stocks and bonds, a life insurance policy is an investment. Periodically, you should review your policy to see whether or not it’s still Check It Out from page 7 rather Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers turn of events. This Aztec legend will inspire readers and teach them about dramatic irony at the same time. This book is best for readers between the ages of five and 10. The El Segundo Public Library offers access to its collection of titles in a variety of formats, including traditional hardback, e-books and books on CD. To check out The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh, Little Red by Bethan Woollvin, and Good Night Baddies by Deborah Underwood, or any other title on your to-read list, please visit the library to apply for your library card, or contact the reference staff for further assistance. • The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh. Katrena Woodson.
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