Growing up, my siblings and I were all taught to swim at a very early age. We were those bobbing babies tossed into the water well prior to turning a year old and continuing with regular weekly lessons until we took the lifeguard exam. Often before we could actually lifeguard as a job. Our time at the YWCA was a regular, a constant, an expected thing and we all had our routine down pat. Whether that meant having dad help us girls get changed in the janitor's closet after class b/c he couldn't enter the ladies locker room, picking up the wire baskets to use in depositing our clothes prior to class, freaking out at the older naked women in the showers (eh, that might have been me), waving to mom or dad up above the pool in the observation room, sharing a hot chocolate with dad after class at White Castles or watching a sibling while their class took place, we all truly loved it there. It felt like an extension of home.
So on Friday nights, at least a couple times a month if I'm recalling correctly, the YWCA offered an open swim of several hours for families. There was no extra cost, no sign-up, no set activities, just the big pool without the ropes up and diving board to do whatever you wanted. And thus we spent quite a bit of time each week convincing our parents that it'd be sooooo fun and sooooo cool to attend. And it was. Fun and cool. Dad would throw us off his shoulders, watch us dive off the board or shorter diving platform, help us with our strokes & play other assorted games. We didn't do it every week or even every month and looking back, I now know why. As a parent, mom or dad would have been tasked with watching at least 3-4 of us of varying ages (not including when we brought friends along), while in the pool themselves. Often with at least one more kid at home with the other parent or in the observation room. That is craziness. It makes me appreciate those times we did go so much more.
And I would so love to do it just one more time. To take in the smell of the place, to go down those stairs with all the big plants in the windows and pick up a wire basket and head into the locker room waving a temporary goodbye to dad, Mike and/or Tim as they turned into the men's locker room and I proceeded to the women's area. To leave my clothing in the basket, pin the numbered safety pin to my suit, run through the showers and ascend the 4-5 stairs up to pool level. Ahhhh, just like yesterday.
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OMG, my heart just sank. Turns out the pool closed in August of '06 and the entire property is up for sale
This is her, our old pool. Diving board & platform removed from the far end back in the mid-late 80s when everyone deemed them much too dangerous. Those murals weren't always on the wall but I remember when they added them, same with the banners hanging from the ceiling. On the right were the entrances to the men and women's locker rooms, and above that the windows to the observation room including an office all the way down on the right. Those windows on the left faced out on the parking lot - always a treat to get in/out of with it's narrow scale. And there was this gutter of tile, for lack of a better term, around the entire pool. It's the lighter blue outline to the entire pool you can see in the picture. A lip that helped prevent too much water from spilling out onto the floor that also contained the drains. I remember sitting in that gutter waiting for my turn to jump in or just watching the water disappear through the drain's grid.
It looks so small and insignificant here but the life in that place and it's place in our lives was nothing of the sort.
4 comments:
that is really neat.
i was the only kid they had to raise (though some stragglers came around later...) and family night was easy to manage.
i once burst into tears because the lawn and garden center i used to go to with my grandfather closed. freaked the boy out. :)
What a super cool treasure chest of family memories :D Sad that it's closing, but how lucky you are to have those experiences...
right on. I have the same sort of memory - watching my brother at the Y waiting my turn. We used to go to the Exeter Public pool and do the same thing w/the pins.
Great read.
Me too. As a young-un in Arizona, the pool was mandatory, whether a softside setup in the backyard or the local public pool. I learned to swim early. Didn't for many years, but learned real swimming in HS and swam for our HS team (started it actually). For me swimming = good memories. (but I still HATE taking the kids to the pool...too much responsibility and no fun as a Dad)
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