Long Amphibious Summers

It would not be inaccurate to say that we basically grew up in the Oak Park Pool. From the time we were little tadpoles until we left home we were there every summer, all summer, splashing and diving, kicking and playing Marco Polo. It is quite surprising that we didn't sprout gills or dorsal fins.

Thunderstorms were our enemies, and just about the only thing that could keep us out of the water, and then only because we were forcibly removed by those dreaded whistle-spinning, under-endowed Speedo-wearing lifeguards.

We walked the mile to the pool each day like it was twenty feet. We wore our suits with the special season-pass tags lovingly sewn on by our moms. There were different color tags each year. I remember green, black, and red. I think they cost $7. That's like a half-a-cent an hour if you work it out over the summer.

Our pool was huge. It was rectangular with 3 ft-deep ends and 5 ft-deep in the middle. There was a 12 ft-deep diving tank jutting off perpendicularly in the middle. The bottom was painted a lovely shade of mid-50's aqua blue, and the water was always clear.

Huge, possibly legendary splash fights regularly erupted in the "5 foot" section, often with ten or twelve people frantically engaged. The water looked like the South Pacific in the midst of a giant World War II carrier battle. I can still feel the sting of the chlorine water in my eyes.

I can also remember the feel of the pool surface, a very rough concrete that often made my feet bleed. But I didn't care, because I was at the pool.

Every now and then, and much too often, the life guards would announce Adult Swim. Those were horrible words to hear. Whistles would blow and anyone under 18 would be rudely sucked from the pool.

"Please clear the pool for adult swim. The next fifteen minutes will be..."

So for the next fifteen minutes we would mope around, scouring the grassy areas for stray coins left by previous pool-goers (or adult pool-goers, safely away swimming). Often we would find enough to buy a hot dog or sno-cone from the concessions booth. They made great sno-cones, slushy and very sweet. I liked "red" the best.

There was a glint of hope when we heard:

"Lifeguards please take your posts..."

Over the speakers. This was our indication to get ready to swim. To miss even a second of swim time was unheard of. Getting caught twenty feet away from the pool when the whistles blew was a disaster of epic proportions, and it didn't happen much.

After what seemed like an eternity, the agony ended as we gloriously heard:
"Three and five foot areas are open. (five second pause) Diving tank is open".

We hit the water like penguins being chased by sea lions, and didn't come up again until the next adult swim. I estimate we typically broke the surface sometime between the words "Three" and "Five". Incidentally, why they opened the main part of the pool five seconds before the diving tank is a mystery that still haunts me to this day. In any event, we were already underwater by that time.

I remember how cold the water was in the spring. We started going as soon as the pool opened and I think we essentially performed the the task of warming the pool up for the summer bathers. Goosebumps were our constant companions until hot-sweaty summer finally broke.

I recall an old leathery-skinned guy who did nothing all summer but lay by the pool and get more and more leathery. And leathery is the correct word, he was impossibly tanned with great wrinkles and no hair whatsoever. Occasionally he would dive into the water to cool down, and I remember scrambling to get out of the way of his ever growing circular slick of tanning oil.

As the hot 70's summers slowly burned on, we could reliably be found there, at the Oak Park Pool, enjoying our childhoods to the hilt, and hoping for sunny weather and lots of loose change.