"I jined up fer a frolic," laughed a tall fellow from Republic County with warts on his face. He turned to his messmate, a blond boy from Fort Scott.… - Harold Keith

Swimming probably ranks close to running, jumping and throwing as the oldest sport of all. We know that even the overhand swimming stroke was practiced by the Romans. Their paintings and mosaics show swimmers cutting through the water overhand, and others swimming with their faces in the water, which suggests the speedy crawl of modern times.
The Greeks and Romans knew a great deal about swimming and diving. Plato declared that in Greece, a man who was not able to swim and dive was as uneducated as one who was ignorant of letters. Caesar was a good swimmer, and Cato showed his son how to cross dangerous gulfs, and the Emperor Augustus taught his nephew to swim. In more modern times, Charlemagne was noted for his swimming stroke, King Louis XI of France often swam in the Seine at the head of his courtiers, and the swimming couriers of Peru traversed hundreds of miles of the South American continent swimming day and night down the rivers. They were aided only by a light log of wood, and their dispatches were enclosed in turbans on their heads.

Bud Wilkinson was a big, blond, articulate man with a soft, modulated voice and a smile that would charm the birds out of the trees. When he was standing talking with somebody, he would sometimes shuffle his feet, bob his head, and, clasping his hands in front of him, rub them softly together. You felt comfortable in his presence and drawn to him even before you were introduced.

Fritz Romberg relaxed his grip on the bridle reins and squinted into the sun. Beneath his blond hair that spiraled in tiny curls and ringlets, beads of sweat ran off his tan face and down inside his cotton shirt that smelled old and stale. A gentle, docile boy, he was small for his thirteen years, but strong, wiry, and not afraid of anyone.