November 27, 1994

A POOL, says Geoff Matesky, is the great equalizer. In a pool it doesn't matter much if your legs don't work or if you can't walk. A wheelchair has no place in a pool. The blue water provides buoyancy, helps build strength and offers achievements measured by the yard for those working their way back from a debilitating injury or around a disability. "What I like about swimming is that it gets you out of the chair," Mr. Matesky said. Mr. Matesky, 30 years old, broke his back in a car accident 10 years ago and as soon as he could he started swimming. It was something he had always loved to do, but his motivation got a major boost when he met Joan Karpuk of Glastonbury. Ms. Karpuk, the physical therapy supervisor at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Hospitals in Hartford, swam the butterfly for the University of Pennsylvania and has been a volunteer coach for disabled swimmers for many years. She has a lighthearted way of gently prodding people with spinal cord injuries or cerebral palsy or spina bifida to don a suit and, eventually, to race the clock.

YOU'VE seen it too often. Quarterbacks stretched out as unconscious as a throw rug before wobbling to their feet after having been sacked or slammed. Wide receivers as limp as a dishrag after having been blind-sided. In the National Football League, it's known as the chance you take as a target. Or is it as a trophy?

LIKE a slow cancer, the Bosnian war is eating away at the Atlantic alliance, laying bare a divergence of strategic interests so basic as to raise the question of whether France and Britain can truly be considered America's allies, at least in the way that they were in confronting Moscow during the cold war. Last week the issue was Bihac, yet another small, hitherto unknown Muslim enclave in Bosnia under assault from Serbs. The Clinton Administration wanted stronger action beyond the two selective NATO air strikes carried out last week against Serb positions in Croatia and Bosnia. It proposed an immediate demilitarization of the Bihac area backed by the threat of new, more destructive NATO air raids.

I confess I am a Pontiac enthusiast. It is genetic. Before our family grew so large that we moved up to a Chevy station wagon, my dad affectionately owned a string of Pontiacs. His first love -- a 1949 Mayan gold club coupe -- swept him away on his honeymoon. Amazingly, this man who can't remember his children's birth dates, much less their middle names, fondly recalls in minute detail shopping from dealership to dealership for his first car, finally negotiating $50 off the price of $2,339.

HANUKKAH begins tonight at sundown. It almost slipped past me this year, so soon after Turkey Day, almost a month before Gift Day. Even when the calendar isn't playing tricks, Hanukkah is confusing, one of those holidays that tend to induce a spot of seasonal existential angst in secularized New York Jews. I called my kids. They refused to be interviewed. Then could I at least say, I said, that this was their way of loading on new guilt for old gelt? One of them said I couldn't even say that until she had her own major media outlet in which to reply.