news-record.com

EDEN — Jane McIntyre will rest when she’s dead. Unless heaven has a pool.

McIntyre, 86, brought home a silver and bronze medal from the 2011 Summer Senior Games, posting times that are goals for people half her age.

For McIntyre, it’s a matter of refusing to accept the standard of old age.

“Too many people take the easy way and that’s not for me,” she said.

McIntyre grew up in Detroit, the daughter of a door-to-door insurance salesman and a loving mother. McIntyre’s family was never well-off but always had money for vacations and things like roller skates and Girl Scouts. She can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t active.

A tall woman, 5-foot-8 before she “started shrinking” as she put it, McIntyre looks like an athlete. She has bright eyes and is quick with a joke or laugh and lights up when she talks about competing.

“Some people shrink from it,” she said. “You like to see how you stack up against other people. If you do good, that’s fine and if you don’t, you try harder.”

McIntyre wasn’t always so competitive. She said she and her two sisters didn’t compete much, and she was never involved in organized sports.

But she loved the water. Her face shifts subtly from a smile to slightest hint of stoicism as she talks about swimming. She is matter-of-fact and deliberate in discussing her form and taking on her competition at swim meets.

Nearly every morning you can find her swimming at the Eden YMCA. As she cuts through the water, the sound of her own heartbeat filling her ears, her mind doesn’t wander to years gone by and she doesn’t contemplate those big questions. No, McIntyre concentrates on her stroke and her lap time.

“I’ve never been very philosophical,” she said.

McIntyre began competing in senior games in 2006 and has raced in several regional and state competitions along with two national games.

She’s modest about her accomplishments, though.

“Winning felt nice because I did beat out a few other ladies,” she said. “But that’s the icing on the cake, it’s not the cake. Family is the cake.”

In fact, McIntyre’s daughter Janice Gross has competed in the Senior Games with her, and McIntyre’s youngest sister Peggy Armstrong plays basketball in the Senior Games.

Gross and McIntyre are even featured waterskiing alongside each other on the cover of a 1955 Chrysler employee magazine at Lake St. Clair. McIntyre’s passion for that sport was reignited a few weeks ago when she attended a four-day camp in Lillington, where she got back up on skis for the first time in decades.

“That was the chocolate frosting on the cake,” she said.

McIntyre’s husband, Jim, died in 2005 and she’s lost several other loved ones as well, but she said she doesn’t think much about death. She said that way leads down into a grave. Instead, she spends her time out of the water reading, emailing friends and family, and taking continuing education classes such as painting and computer courses.

When her time does come, McIntyre hopes she’s remembered for what she did in and out of the pool.

“Some of them maybe will remember that I did some competitions,” she said, “but hopefully, they will remember me as a kind person.”