11 August 2024
I’ve been thinking of swimming pools lately. I climbed down into mine this morning while there was still some shade on the east end. My iPhone was playing a selection of my favorites and I hoped the bouyancy of the water would help my back. It seemed to relax me a little but it could be just the warm water, the music and the cumulus clouds billowing overhead. Anyway, it got me to thinking about pools.
I almost didn’t buy this house because it had a pool. I knew nothing about pool maintenance and I figured it as another expense to hire someone who did. After buying the house I began to see about pool maintenance and realized it was basically adjusting chemicals and since I taught a lot of chemistry over the years, I figured I could maintain it myself. It only took me approximately 20 years to get a firm grasp on everything that goes on with a pool. I can safely say I am a master until the next mystery goes on with the pool.
I think the very first “pool” I swam in was at Fort Liberty nee Bragg in North Carolina. Dad was probably undergoing training for Korea and as a Captain, we had access to the officers club and pool. It was here I almost drowned. I had one of those floats that go around your waist (probably with a horse head) and I was in the “big boys” section after pleading with my mother. Someone jumped in close to me and flipped me upside down. My legs were entangled with the float. If I hadn’t caught a fire hose used to fill the pool, I wouldn’t be here today. I pulled myself upright and spit out a gallon of water. The lifeguard on duty has yet to see me drowning.
My next pool was at Forest, Mississippi. I think mother enrolled me for swimming lessons one summer. I remember having to run through streams of water from the men’s changing room to the pool deck. What good that did, I have no idea. The pool at Forest eventually closed down when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. The white population couldn’t stand the idea of sharing the pool with Black kids. The filled the pool and built a business over the top.
Most of the rest of my life was spent in ponds and lakes. The two main lakes were at Roosevelt State Park in Mississippi and Camp Kickapoo in Clinton, Mississippi. The preacher’s wife taught me to swim at Roosevelt and cousin Jo taught me to swim on my back to the diving tower.
As a Boy Scout, if you were to earn Eagle rank, you had to pass the lifesaving merit badge. Our Scoutmaster, Mr. Polk, knew I was not in shape for that. He got his son Don to work with me and Buzz Shoemaker. Don was the black sheep of the family but he took his role as instructor very seriously. He would have me and Buzz swim from the end of the far pier, around the diving platform, and back about 20 times and then he would jump on one of us, take us to the bottom of the lake and we would have to break his hold and pull him ashore. It was the best training I’ve had even though Buzz and I hated him for it.
That year at Kickapoo, Buzz and I passed lifesaving merit badge easily because of Don Polk.
The only other pool I remember at this time was at Battlefield Park in Jackson, Mississippi. The pool was huge but so was the attendance. Like the Forest pool, they closed that pool down due to integration.
For quite a few years, swimming went by the wayside until I moved to Hollywood, Florida and joined the YMCA. They had a junior Olympic pool and I got in the habit of swimming a mile every time I went (most every day).
About this time I went to summer school at Florida State for a Library and Information Science masters. I frequented the pool there which was Olympic in size. I got pretty good at swimming a mile. I do remember that in the heat of summer, that was the coldest water I ever felt in a pool.
When I moved to Fort Lauderdale, I joined the Y there and did the same. The Y in Fort Lauderdale was conveniently located two blocks away and I continued to increase my distance and stamina.
When I bought the house where I live now, I figured I would use the pool to cool off. It wasn’t long enough to swim laps. However, I discovered swim cords that tie around your ankles and are fixed to a stationary object so you can swim in place. I can safely say that the pool I didn’t want ended up being the one feature I use the most. I’d be lost without my pool.
Maintenance on my pool is a continuous thing and is expensive but it’s the best money I spend at the house. I really enjoy going out there after dark, turn on the pool light, and skinny dip as I watch the stars and moon. The light from the pool up-lights the palms that line the pool which reminds me of arches in cathedrals. Sometimes I’m lucky and there is some snake plant (Mother-in-law tongues) or night blooming cereus to perfume the semitropical air. Up until all this cancer stuff, I seldom went a day I didn’t spend some quality time in the pool.
Stay tuned! I might go skinny dippin’ tonight!