Her post brought back a LOT of memories for me. We never had a backyard pool when I was growing up -- unless you count the cheap inflatable ones. (I hear they sold out earlier this summer when people realized they were going to be stuck at home because of COVID-19...!) My dad actually built a pool for me & my sister out of plywood when we were preschoolers (!) -- he painted it an aqua blue & would fill it up with the garden hose. (I'm not sure how he kept it from leaking??) There were no such things as waterparks back then (and even if there were, we were probably hundreds of miles away from the closest one!), but we set the slide from our swingset into it, so we could climb up & then slide down into the water. :)
Some of the small towns we lived in had public pools where we took swimming lessons. The public pool where I spent the most time was the one in my grandmother's small town in Minnesota. When we were younger, our moms would take me & my cousins there; when we got older, we'd bring our bikes with us to Grandma's house and then ride them over there by ourselves, wearing our suits with our towels tied around our waists, sarong style. We spent many, many hours in that pool. We'd start swimming lessons at the pool in our hometown in late June. Then we'd head to Grandma's in early July and stay there for several weeks. We'd enroll in swimming lessons at the pool there, but the schools in Minnesota had been out (and the pool open) since mid-May, so we'd be way behind our classmates. Somehow, I learned enough to be able to swim, although not really well -- enough to keep myself afloat for a little while if I had to, lol.
Some of the places we lived were too small to have a public pool, but we would still go to the beach (nearby small lakes) on many summer weekends. Even in the middle of the Canadian Prairies, there was always a lake somewhere nearby. At one point, when I was between the ages of about 8 to 13, we lived in a small town on the shore of a very big lake -- like, within a few blocks of our house. The water was often too cold for swimming until at least July, but we were "free-range" kids in those days, and my sister and I and our friends would often ride our bikes down to the beach & go wading, or just sit on the shore & talk, watching the waves roll in. It was a very shallow lake, and we could wade out for quite a long way before the water ever got above our knees.
When I was in high school, there was another big lake & a lovely beach about 20 miles outside of the town where we lived. Once my friends got their driver's licenses, we'd drive out there on a summer Saturday night after work/supper, swim until it got dark and then build a bonfire on the beach. I don't think we ever drank anything more than Coke or 7-Up, but we sure had fun. I can never hear "Echo Beach" by Martha & the Muffins (a huge hit in Canada if not elsewhere) without thinking of those days.
I don't think I knew anybody with an in-ground pool in their backyard until I got married and moved to Toronto. I always said I didn't think I'd want one myself, because it was such a huge responsibility, and if anything ever happened to someone else's kid, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. But I thought it would be nice to have a friendly neighbour who had one, lol. ;) Alas, that was never the case! A couple of dh's cousins have them, but it's mostly the kids who go in whenever we all get together -- not the adults, and rarely/never the adult women for some weird reason!!
Our condo building doesn't have a pool. (It's one of the first things people ask us when they hear we live in a condo!) It's a smaller building, 122 units on 7 floors. Pools & their upkeep cost money -- and our monthly maintenance fees are high enough as it is, lol. There are indoor pools at the local community centres -- two within short drives of us -- but we've never gone. I'm not even sure my bathing suit still fits me -- it's pretty ancient and it's been quite a while since the last time I had it on...!
Do you have a swimming pool? Do you have friends with a pool(s) who invite you to use theirs?
You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.
I love this, it's like a personal history of swimming! :) I never had a pool myself growing up, but we swam in the beautiful inground pool of the makeup artist my dad apprenticed under for years. It was gorgeous and surrounded with bamboo for privacy and the nice German lady next door, Hattie, used to bring us chocolate covered graham crackers as a snack. There was a quarry we belonged to and a pool club friends with money belonged to (Rocky Ledge) that if I was lucky I got invited to come along...and Saxon Woods was our public pool in the town I grew up in. I went to Jones Beach on Long Island and Fire Island and Cape May and Long Beach Island in New Jersey for ocean. I don't get much chance to swim now unless we stay in a hotel with a pool, and I don't quite trust Lake Ontario on our end. :( I have paddleboarded in the Finger Lakes relatively recently though and I LOOOOOOOVE my paddleboard shorts -- I get a tankini top and the shorts with built-in-brief, and I WILL NEVER GO BACK. So comfortable and flattering and no more bikini line worries. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely memory of your father building the pool and bonfires on the lake shores! That sounds amazing.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, a couple of youth group members had pools, so they'd occasionally host parties. I was always irritated my parents wouldn't consider getting one! As an adult, though, one of my first criteria for buying a house was "no pool", lol - I knew that it was too much work to keep up with the maintenance for about 4-5 months of use, let alone the extra homeowner's insurance costs. Totally with you on that one. We did have a lot of lakes in the area where I grew up, so while not so many friends with pools, did have several friends with boats :). These days, I live a few minutes from the local YMCA, so while it's out this summer due to coronavirus, last summer I treated myself to a swim suit I loved - I'd been eyeing it for months when it went on clearance and I finally couldn't resist - so that I could actually feel decent about putting one on!
When COVID hit, I knew everyone would be clamoring for a pool, and sure enough they had sold out. We got ours from China, right from the manufacturer and now we have a 10 foot pool. It's funny, what you said about how the grownups don't swim, much less the women. I don't get it, because I see that all the time and I'm the only adult woman who wants to get in the pool with the kids. I mean, how can you resist a pool when it's blazing hot out?
ReplyDeleteIn March, an on a whim, my husband ordered a small above-ground blowup pool. We finally got it set up in June -- it took quite a bit of prep to level the ground it would sit on -- but it has proven to be a pandemic hit.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I'm heading out there in a bit to float while I read or listen to a podcast. Wanna come over? #wishfulthinking