The Globe and Mail |
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JUNE
15, 1968
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Trudeau makes a splash |
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| OAKVILLE (CP) — Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau clowned and showed superb diving skill at the Holiday
Inn pool here during the lunch break of his campaigning day yesterday. While he clowned, admiring reporters looked on. Mr. Trudeau demonstrated his version of the “Stanfield dive” and the “Douglas dive” with something less than his usual grace. The 48-year-old Prime Minister showed up in green trunks at the fairly secluded pool just after arriving from shopping-centre tours in Mississauga and Oakville. Looking a little shy about the whole thing, he bounced up and down on the end of the board and then wen back to check the board’s balance. As a small crowd collected, Mr. Trudeau finally jumped into the water. He did smooth swan dives, back flips and full gainers. “That’s a full gainer with a scream,” he said after one spectacular number. “Do a Stanfield dive,” a spectator called and Mr. Trudeau obliged by flopping into the water. “Do you want |
to see a Tommy Douglas?” he
asked. He did a split off the end of the board and smashed face down
into the water. Reporter Sharon Waterman, 19, of the University of Toronto Varsity, was lounging against the fence and Mr. Trudeau called to her to come on in . “No bathing suit,” she said, “Well, Marilyn Monroe did it,” Mr. Trudeau replied. “His bald spot looks cute,” a girl in a Trudeau dress commented. The wife of innkeeper Peter Vandenberg came over in a two-piece swimming suit and joined the Prime Minister for a couple of laps of the pool. Yesterday was the first day in Oakville for the Vandenbergs. Mr. Vandenberg had been with the Holiday Inn in Kitchener. The Liberal candidate in Halton, 36-year-old Rud Whiting, also joined the swim for a while. A group of teenagers gathered at a distant fence to cheer Mr. Trudeau. He walked over with a towel around his neck to sign autographs and touch hands before going in to change. |
| Article reprinted with permission of The Globe and
Mail Photo Credit: Joe Hourigan/CP Picture Archive |