Pool memories

The town of Riverside is abuzz over the proposed splashpad. When the issue came up last year, I had to do some research just to find out what a splashpad was because I had never gone to one. My hometown of Pocahontas is about twice the size of Riverside and is able to support a swimming pool, which I visited frequently as a boy.

I took swimming lessons in early elementary school. Back then, in the mid 1990s, we had two pools. We had the main pool for the adults and then another called the ?kiddie pool,? for really young kids. The kiddie pool was always quite warm, partly because it was shallow and also, we suspected, because of what the kiddies were doing when they were in the pool.

In about 1997 the pool was completely remodeled. Instead of having a separate pool for the little tykes, the new pool had a ?zero depth? entry, which means the depth of the water gradually increases as you enter it. The old pool was not like that. Its shallowest depth was 3 feet.

The old pool had a single diving board which was just a few feet above the water. The new one had two diving boards, one of which was a high dive. The high dive was probably 12 feet off the water, but my goodness, it seemed liked a mile when you were on top. Some of my friends could do tricks off the diving boards such as backflips and somersaults. I was never so adventurous. I stuck with can openers and cannonballs. I was afraid of hurting myself (and my pride) if I did anything more complicated than that.

The diving boards were nice but the most fun addition to our new pool was the 186-foot waterslide. It was the talk of the town, at least among fifth-graders, in the weeks leading up to the pool?s opening that summer. The slide was a real treat. We didn?t tire of it for at least a month. We were really tempted to go down it headfirst but the lifeguards wouldn?t let us. Sometimes we would turn ourselves around while we were on the slide so we came out headfirst, but somehow the lifeguards didn?t like that, either.

Going to the pool in the afternoon was a great way to cool off on a hot day, but obviously that was when the pool was crowded. Our pool did not allow you to bring water toys to the pool in the afternoon, but they did allow it during family hour in the evening. Oftentimes, I went with my friend Grant and his parents, who acted as my adoptive family for an hour each day. We had a lot of fun playing with boogie boards and noodles, and playing catch with foam footballs. Grant?s brother, Sky, was a few years older than us so of course he liked to dunk us. But since there were two of us and only one of him, Grant and I found ways of returning the favor.