It was the last bell of the last day and and our shouts rang throughout Central School. The month was June, the temperatures were already in the high eighties and there was only one place to be. We roamed the woods in the fall and spring and waited for snow in the winter but when summer vacation came, look for us neck deep in the swimming pool.
Built by Leroy Springs and Company in the mid 1950’s, the Springs pool was the center of our recreation complex. I had outgrown the careful supervision of my vigilant mother and bicycle cool had not yet given way to car cool. My friends and I would ride our bikes through Unity Cemetery (not such a bad place…in the daylight) and up Tom Hall Street by Luke Patterson’s Grocery onto Banks Street. It would lead us all the way to Fort Mill High School where we turned toward our goal.
We passed the skating rink on our right. Skating was out of vogue and mostly for girls, we thought. A set of swings, a couple of see-saws and horseshoe pits marked the border of the Fort Mill Golf Course Clubhouse on the left. The old clubhouse, later destroyed by fire, was built in a rustic wooden style and besides locker rooms and a small pro shop, housed a community room for dances and parties.
The high school gym and athletic fields to our right would figure in our adventures on other days and the bowling alley, just past the clubhouse, could wait too. On this summer morning, our destination was in sight and the water sparkled at the bottom of the hill.
About where the back nine starts now was the Leroy Springs Pool. The Fort Mill Golf Course had only nine holes at the time. Breaking to a cool slide at the bottom of the hill, (we loved that tire against gravel sound) and pushing our bicycles into the bike rack in front of the low building, we would take our towel roll out of the bike basket and race into the open front entrance. Tossing our dimes on the counter we would grab the metal baskets for our towels and clothes. Each basket came with an oversized numbered safety pin attached.
The dressing room entrances were to the sides…girls to the right, boys to the left. The boys’ dressing room was a big square tiled space with the bleachy smell of chlorine. We took a quick seat on the benches that lined the walls to take off shirts and shoes. The roof of the dressing room was open to the sky in the middle and we wondered if the girls’ side was too. There were countless pre-teen discussions about the wonders we could see if we could fly over in a helicopter. Already in our suits, we would put our shirts, tennis shoes, and towels in the baskets and clip the safety pin to our bathing suits.
After a quick dance around under the chilly shower, we left the dressing area, handed in our baskets and stepped through the tiny pool of bleach. Running at a swimming pool is always a no-no but evidently running with very small steps is allowed. We were experts at “tiny running”.
There were two pools and we all graduated from one to the other. The “Baby Pool” was only about 10 inches deep and was ringed by young mothers dipping infants for their secular baptism. Mothers with toddlers sat together at one end of the pool and kept a close eye on their splashing and giggling little ones. The name “Baby Pool” was not a pejorative but if you were over age seven and got in it…well, you just had to take what was coming to you.
The big pool started at three feet deep and went to about ten. It had a gradual slope for about half the length of the pool and then dropped sharply to the deep end under the two diving boards. Lifeguards in high wooden chairs on the sides of the pool kept an eye out for weak swimmers and cautioned them back behind the rope into the shallow end.
The “Pool Rules” also warned against “rough-housing” and “horseplay”. None of us was sure about the parameters of roughhousing but knew we had crossed the line when we heard the lifeguard’s shrill whistle. Here’s what I gathered was over the limit; splashing too much water at girls, holding a friend under water too long, and doing a cannonball in the middle of a crowd of people. It seemed that if it was too much fun, it was too much roughhousing. There were no warnings about shenanigans. I guess those were reserved for the older folks who should have known better.
There were always challenges and dares because we were boys and competition was in our blood. Can you swim the width of the pool underwater? I bet you can’t dive deep enough to touch the drain in the deep end? Can you dive off the diving board…not jump, anybody can jump. When you dive you risk the full body humiliating sting of the belly flop.
We were in that pre-teen confusion about girls. They were still unknown territory but we knew there was something we would like about them. Like some exotic sunburned birds, we would do anything to attract their attention. Doing handstands near the chosen girls, swimming underwater and surfacing near a cluster of them, and splashing and playing while making sure they were watching were all part of our mating ritual. Almost any behavior was easier than swimming over and talking to them. Sometimes, a winning smile would embolden us to actually speak…mostly in mumbles, but it was a start.
We would stay in the pool until our fingers and toes were water soaked and wrinkled. Only when the pool closed for the afternoon would we collect our towels and shirts for our trip home. Tired and thirsty, there might be a quick stop at Luke’s for a Nehi Grape, my favorite drink, before we split up and headed for our homes.
We were the boys of summer and those were our halcyon days. We stacked those days like firewood and they would warm us through dark winters ahead. Love and life and heartache were in our future but for now, a bicycle, a swimming pool and maybe a Nehi grape made for the perfect day.
The bowling alley, the gym and the ball fields would also loom big in our lives but those memories can wait for another day. I’m tired…always am after swimming.
Comentarios