Marathon Men

VIDEO

The Senior Golden Olympics

Senior athletes from William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center in D.C. compete in the 25th Annual Golden Olympics. A look into the competition as narrated by Mrs. Dottie Nielson.

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"No, let's put our minds on doing 200, and, if you have to do it really easy, turn over on your back."

John stares past her for a moment. Considers his next move. There and back, there and back, there and back, there and back. A long way to glory.

John Tatum can see beyond the lane into the hopeful distance. He wants to finish in the top three at the Summer National Senior Games in August 2009 in San Francisco. In 2005, he won silver medals in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events, but just a bronze in the 100-yard freestyle in 2007. That was the year his younger brother, Brad, 87, medaled in five events and broke Senior Olympics records in his age group in two. Brad's still swimming strong. But John is the oldest one on the team and has started to feel himself slow. He can still drive to North Carolina to visit a friend, still hosts the annual neighborhood Father's Day celebration for hundreds. His life is rich and full of movement. He just worries, more often these days, how much longer it can stay that way.

"Okay, let's go," John tells Jenkins. Side-by-side, the teammates push off. The following month, May, would be the Golden Olympics in D.C., a qualifying competition for the 2009 Senior Games. There probably won't be much competition in the 84- to 89-year-old category. Just Brad.

With every stroke, John's arms land heavy in the water.

Just keep swimming, he says to himself.

BRADFORD TATUM IS FINISHING HIS 500-YARD SWIM. He lifts the goggles from his eyes.

"He's not even breathing hard," says John Tatum. "I just finished a 100, and I'm like, huh, huh, huh," he pants.

John climbs on the diving block, leans into position, and sails into the lane, over the top of his brother's head. It's a typical Monday morning practice, and the Takoma Community Center pool in Northwest is churning. At the other end, an aerobics class is counting off. The sounds of voices and blaring music echo off the water, and the old men are cocooned by movement and sound. But then, that's something they've known all their lives.

There were eight Tatum kids, four boys and four girls, and they stayed in motion -- church, school, sports, piano lessons. Two sisters, Nancy Bradley, 79, who lives in Northeast Washington, and Sarah Honesty, 92, who still drives from her Northeast home to her Southeast church every Sunday, are still alive.

Brad, who fought in Europe during World War II and retired after more than 30 years as a teacher and administrator with the District public schools, is taller than his brother. John, who retired as a computer programmer in 1974, after being with the Navy Department for nearly 35 years, has a bigger belly; but both of them have long and leanly muscled legs. They have no excesses of skin, no looseness around their limbs to provide resistance in the water or mark them as having spent almost nine decades in the world. Both brothers' blue eyes are still clear enough to take in everything.

The brothers share the lane, working on their freestyle. They first started swimming together as boys in a bygone Washington. They lived between Foggy Bottom and Georgetown when that part of the city was all black. The Ku Klux Klan once paraded past their house on horseback as John clutched his mother's hand.