Let's Go to the Pool!

It is the month of June. Public schools have been dismissed for the summer. As a former public pool regular swimmer and later employee, pools have been on my mind lately! I am especially excited because the public pool in my hometown, where I swam almost every day and worked for five years is opening soon after overcoming some difficult odds!

The pool is very old as far as outdoor pools go. My dad swam there as a child, so that means it has been there at least 50 years. (I just spoke to him on the phone and he believes it has been there since the mid-1950s.) It is old and junky and not very high tech. It has never had a heater which meant taking the plunge could be a shocking experience! When we opened in the spring it was usually 64 or 65 degrees and during the hottest weeks it might get into the low 70s. (If you weren't aware, a typical heated outdoor pool is around 80-82 degrees and some indoor pools that are used primarily for swimming lessons and such are close to 90 degrees.) The first thing kids would do when they arrived was walk over to the ladder with the thermometer tied to the step to check the temperature! One day, during our opening week, the water was 64 degrees and there were plenty of kids there, excited to be at the pool, but none of them were swimming because it was too cold to enjoy. Instead they horsed around on the deck and caused problems. My co-worker Molly and I told them that it couldn't be that bad and that they were weak and declared that we were going swimming on our break and were going to stay in for a certain amount of time (maybe 10 minutes?). We jumped in together and when we broke the surface I think the whole town could hear our gasping and screaming! Wow, that was cold water. It was colder than the glacial river I experienced when I went rafting in the mountains of Norway. In addition to the lack of heater, the chlorine tank is housed in a little building that looks like an outhouse. Pools require soda ash, a white powdery chemical, to regulate the pH of the water (it should be at 7.4-7.8 for maximum comfort. If it is lower it causes the eyes to burn slightly. Sometimes if you are in a pool and think the chlorine is too strong it could be an off-kilter pH that is causing the problem in your eyes. I know 7 is the neutral pH, and I don't know why that is too low for pools. Ask a chemist!) We had to add soda ash by pouring it in, while most pools have an automatic dispenser. The filter system is, I imagine, primitive compared to newer pools and to open and close the hatch that sealed the filter we had to whack it with a hammer a few times! (The kids weren't allowed back there!)

There was never an official day that the pool would open. It depended on the weather and the water temperature rising out of the low 60s. My brother and sister and I got so excited on the day it opened that we would put our new swimming suits on under our clothes when we got dressed in the morning. If we heard bad news about the status it would devastate us! When it finally happened, our mom would drive us to town and we would be there all afternoon. If it was really hot we would come back for the evening session. In the early 1990's there were still many moms that lounged at the pool with their kids. By the time I started working there in 1999 moms that were available for an leisurely afternoon at the pool were few and far between and they had been replaced by babysitters and daycare providers. Even my own sun loving mother was working business hours. I guess it is a sign of the times with both positive and negative implications. . .

I think back longingly about lifeguarding. I always knew I wanted to work there when I was old enough and attended the required classes enthusiastically as soon as I was old enough (I started when I was 15 and turned 16 before they were over). I worked where my friends worked and we had alot of fun on the job. We were involved in all aspects, beginning with cleaning and painting in May and ending with a few extended days after school started. We had many inside jokes between us and were united together against complaints from parents who thought we could do nothing right. We shared books and magazines and bags of candy. On my precious days off I would often get bored by the end of the day and drive to the pool just to hang out and hear about the days' events! I recall floating around on a hot day during our 3:00 break, with the kids impatiently waiting around the edge of the pool to be allowed back in, and thinking that I was so happy to be working there. That was, of course, before I heard a child's voice saying, "Maren! (Or Erin, Rachel, Jill, Andrea, Dusty) When can we get in the pool!" So much for a relaxing break. . .They would be answered with something along the lines of "We will let you know when break is over and if you ask again we will add five minutes!" or "Didn't you learn to tell time in school? Look at the clock!"

Ah, of course, the kids. . .I know that job wasn't all fun. . .Of course there were many great kids who were nice and fun and agreeable. The ones that made it hard were the ones that were at the pool every day, on the days few others were because it was cool outside or cloudy. They were kids who weren't from the best family situations who wanted our attention all the time because it was obvious they didn't get any at home. They tried to get attention any way they could, by acting up and breaking rules or by being clingy and needy and asking our help for everything and wanting to us watch everything they did. They didn't come at the beginning of the summer with bright new suits and beach towels but instead continued to wear last years' outgrown suit or a faded hand-me-down. We let it slide when the handfull of change they brought to pay the $1 admission came up ten or twenty cents short and pretended not to notice because we knew no one was home to give them money. We drove them home when we had to close early due to unexpected bad weather and they couldn't get a hold of anyone to pick them up. I think of them with sadness right now but during those summers they really did drive my co-workers and I crazy. Some days we were at the end of our ropes and didn't think we could take any more from them because they were always there and if you tried to pay attention to other kids they would try to direct it back to themselves. It was hard not to snap at them and tell them to leave us alone and go home! Many days I was so relieved when the door was locked and I was in my vehicle with my stereo volume turned up to an almost innappropriate volume! After all, immature teenagers and self-centered college students aren't usually equipped to be a stable adult influence for troubled, attention starved little kids especially when we were supposed to be lifeguarding and watching all of the kids, not just a few. I don't know how teachers do it. They have my admiration.

Also, there was the general grossness that is part of life whenever many kids are together in one environment. The locker rooms were damp and birds would get in the office. The boys locker room was especially unpleasant because, with a few exceptions, the lifeguards were usually female and couldn't monitor the area. I will never forget when a little guy came to us with a worried look and said he had to show us something and we got clearance to enter and discovered that some thuggish kid had brought two cans of beer in his bag! That was actually kind of upsetting because, although most teenagers have tried beer, the boy was a kid in elementary school. Also, there were the more typical boy related problems like out of control urine streams and toilet plugging antics. (Hilarious, boys, the funniest thing I've ever seen. An old dirty sock in the toilet. Hahaha.)

Anyway, I mentioned that the pool is opening soon after overcoming some tribulations. Last spring, as the city maintenance crew was preparing the pool to open, they drained the sludgy water that stays in the pool all winter to keep the pipes full and prevent them from shattering in the cold. Once the water was drained, the change in volume caused the pool to rise out of the ground! It sounds bizarre, but the "bowl" of the deep end rose about one foot above the deck which caused the concrete of the deck and around the pool to crack and separate. The internal plumbing was also interfered with. The cause was determined to be the high water table deep under the ground. The cost of repairing this aging, outdated pool was prohibitive and it sat empty and unopened all year, the gravel parking lot filling with weeds. I felt very sad every time I saw it because, if you couldn't infer, I have a lot of affection for this pool! I even had a dream one night about the empty, uprooted pool surrounded by kids who were standing outside the fence but couldn't get in. Very sad. The cost was estimated to be around $100,000 to fix it and the city's budget did not allow that kind of funding. The only hope was to get a grant from the government, I believe it was from FEMA. As I understand, there are few available and they are very hard to get. Also, the town has many residents who have always thought that the pool is just a big "money pit" (and it is, but aren't most public recreational entities?). I tried to forget about it and accept that when I visited home with my own children going swimming would not be one of the available activities.

Well, guess what? They received the grant! Holy crap! I was so happy the day I found out. The grant would pay for repairs to make the pool the way it was but not for improvements. Imagine my delight when, this spring, I was in the Ampride station buying a sandwich and noticed a collection can on the counter. A group of interested parents is raising money to add a heater!!! A HEATED POOL! I hear that most of it is already raised. This weekend they are having a "bra auction" to add to the funds. Apparently, my mother is creating a golf themed bra that is going to shoot golf balls. . .Tim's got some sort of mechanical system planned to make it happen. . .I will miss it, unfortunately, but I am still proud of my town for stepping up for the kids! I can't imagine what it will be like! No more agonizing swimming lessons where the teachers feign enthusiasm while the kids shiver with blue lips! No more thermometer obsession!

This is a photo of Jacob, a boy my sister and brother and I used to babysit. The photo is taken in the "shallow end"!

I do not want to diminish my happiness about the pool being resurrected but I do have one tiny concern. . .they are filling in the deep end (the deepest the pool will get is 5 ft.) and taking out the diving board because they are now considered a liability. Although the heater money may be great enough to fund a water slide I am still bummed about the diving board because that was the best part of the pool! Becoming a good enough swimmer to be in the "deep end" and use the diving board was a major right of passage, as was learning to dive. (I have been diving since the summer before I started 1st grade. I got reprimanded by the lifeguard at our neigborhood pool in Gillette, WY, for diving in the shallow part of the pool and he told my parents to take me to the deep end!)

As children we spent hours inventing diving board stunts and competing with each other! There was the toothpick (a feet-first trick for the non-diving crowd!) the eggroll, the flying squirrel, the back dive (my self-taught specialty!) the bomb and the cannonball (those are not the same thing!) and many more. When it was really busy the line to "go off the board" wound around the pool to the ladder. It was always a blast when someone's dad or a big high school boy would do a "bomb" and make a huge splash that left the water in tumult! It was a classic game when the kids decided to try to splash the lifeguard! I always let them try because it took a big kid to make a splash that would reach our tall lifeguard chair!

I can't believe that, from now on, kids probably won't learn to dive and won't face the challege and satisfaction of mastering the diving board. It was how we proved ourselves and everyone loved to be the best at a new trick. I still regret that I never mastered the "flip"! I landed on my back while trying to attempt that many times! At least it made people laugh. . .

There is the offending liability, the diving board! That is the second board I remember. It is now sitting in a pile of rubble on the lawn next to the pool. This photo was taken at our Midnight Swim that we had every August before school started. I can describe the scene. . .it was probably cooling down after a hot day, and the sounds of truck full of wheat could probably be heard rumbling at the elevator a block away. The air probably smelled like wheat harvest and chlorine (two of my most nostalgic smells!) and there was probably some crappy pop songs on the radio. Some kid who I didn't trust was probably taking this picture with my precious Advantix camera and making me nervous that it would slip and shatter on the deck. It was my last summer working there. I know that because that shirt I am wearing is from an intramural softball team I was on my sophomore year of college. I lifeguarded for two more years at a large pool in Fargo (where we actually wore uniforms!) during law school after one year off from lifeguarding. In the photo I am the one with the white legs. The girl on the end of the board is Andrea. She started working there two years after I did. I look happy in the picture but I was probably looking forward to the next few weeks, when I would put away my swimming suits and return to my college life where my biggest time commitment was a few hours of class a day and where I spent my evenings sipping rum and cokes in fraternity houses or planning fall recruitment instead of skimming dragonflies out of the pool and hustling pokey kids out of the locker room at 9:05 pm.

That is me, performing my favorite diving board stunt! I don't know whose finger that is. . .

That is Andrea. What kind of stunt is that? I will miss the deep end. . .I have always loved the feeling of pressure I feel in my ears when I let myself sink to the bottom of the 12 feet. But, I will get over it and I will certainly be visiting the pool this summer! I can't wait to pull into the parking lot and dodge the bikes that will be littering half of it and park under the row of shady trees that were the prime parking spots!