When I was growing up, we lived in a poor farming community in NE Pennsylvania. While we had plenty of lakes in the area, we had no swimming pools. My father decided that I should learn how to swim.

We went to one of the lakes in the area and my father put a boat in the water. He rowed me out a little ways from shore and threw me overboard. I swam back to shore. He took me out further and threw me overboard again.

Again I swam back to shore. He took me out still further to the deepest part of the lake and threw me overboard once more. I swam back to shore again. That's how I learned to swim.

Actually, learning to swim wasn't the hard part ... it was getting out of that burlap bag