When I think about my years growing up, one place comes to mind that is very near and dear to my heart, and that is the pool at the country club in my neighborhood. My experience at that pool is also somewhat unique. I started off as a child there, my dad being obsessed with golf, naturally had a membership so I got to play at the pool there every day from the time I was 2 years old. As the years passed, my parents divorced and of all things my mom married the man who ran the pool. My step-dad was a high school basketball coach by profession, but in the summers he ran the entire program at that pool, including the lifeguards, swim team, and then the whole league of about 30 teams, which he did for about 25 years. As I grew up, I spent every day of every summer until I was about 20 years old at that pool. I swam on the swim team. I played on the hill with my step-sisters and my other pool friends. We ran around on parts of the golf course when no one was on it. We walked over to the pro shop at the tennis courts and got Chupa Chup suckers for 10 cents every day. We had burgers and grilled cheeses and french fries with mayonnaise on a daily rotating basis from the pool grill. I had a raw pink nose that still bears the freckles from all those years in the sun, despite those years my mom made me wear zinc all over it.
As I became a little older, I volunteered at the day camp program that was started up. Then as a young teenager, 13 or 14, I started helping with the swim team. A paid job! I worked alongside my step-dad and helped coach the 6 and unders and then worked up the age groups as I got older. At some point my dad dropped his membership and I was no longer a club member there, but still had the full benefits, almost anyway, though now I was the working girl. Then I took on lifeguarding, had terrific friendships with the lifeguards there and so it remained until my second summer home from college when I knew it was time for it to come to an end. And even then I taught swim lessons throughout my college summers at various places. But back to "the pool."
My step-dad was a legend in that neighborhood. Everybody thought he hung the moon. I can honestly say he was like the god of swim team in southwest Houston. But he too retired about 10 years ago. I still run into many kids that we grew up with or taught to swim, and all of us still remember how wonderful those times were (though I'm pretty sure every one of us actually hated practice). But once practice was over we all just hung out there all day. We never ran out of stuff to do. As we got older we tried to skip practice. We were never successful. My step-dad and his co-coach would always come find us and force us back in the water.
But if we hated practice so much, why did we do it? We loved everything else that came with it. The swim meets were a blast. How hard is it to swim a couple races in the pool and otherwise sit there hour after hour with 100 other kids, including big, cool teenagers, and eat fun dip, nachos and frito pie and any other kind of junk food you can think of? We had this unbelievable banquet at the end, not the usual pizza party that most athletic teams have at the end of every sports season. It was in the banquet room of the club and TONS of trophies were awarded. This was a banquet where everyone wore their Sunday best and the kids were treated like grownups. And it was great to see everyone look so pretty after seeing them so ragged and wet all summer.
That pool made me happy. I fit in there. There were no popularity contests. I had good friends and the pool came home with me because my step-dad brought it home as he labored over heat sheets and the weekly swim meet lineup. I have no bad memories after all the countless hours I spent there. It was OUR place. Me, my step-siblings, and some of the other regulars that had the same love for it. It was my home away from home and my very favorite place and time of year all the way up until I left it.
So why am I bringing it up now? My big girls are finally old enough for swim team and after much investigating the teams in our area, I've decided to put them on my old team. It's a little further than some of the others, but not much. I love the way they run the team. They are GREAT with the little kids, and maybe not quite as hard-core as many of the other teams around here, which I know would scare my kids off. We have several church friends on the team, as well as a few others, so why not?
Yesterday was the first day. I felt so weird and nervous about going. But we went and I felt like I stepped straight into a time warp. So many weird feelings as I looked around, could see how it had changed, and was flooded with memories that started when I was 2 and ended when I was about 20. And yet, other than a small few who knew otherwise, I was the newbie yesterday. Very few even know my history of swim team and what I do and don't know. One of my friends that I grew up with at that pool has been the head coach the last 7 years, but couldn't do it this summer. But her daughter is on the team anyway. So she was there, everyone knew her since she was last year's coach, but I was the one she was talking to. I was the one person there that she could share a lifetime of memories with. Then my mom and step-dad came up and we were all standing there and I couldn't believe how in an instant I stepped back into my teenage years. The memories are all so crystal clear.
I want people there to know that we built that team. I say WE but of course it was really my step-dad and his other coach Teri. They made it what it was but we were every bit a part of it. And now no one knows. People are telling me things that of course I know full-well, but do I toot my own horn? That would be a bit ridiculous, so I just smile and nod. In time some people will know I had strong roots there, but no one will understand what that really means unless they knew us then too.
So now I take my place as the swim team mom. I would like to volunteer more and have a bigger hand in it, and I know they need it, but with the two little girls in tow I imagine at least for a year or two I will be limited. I want my girls to love it. They probably won't. It's not the magical place it was once. The neighborhood is aging, the club is struggling (and has been for 20 years), and the pool could use a makeover, but swim team is still fun and I hope they stick with it for quite a while. After all, it's hot where we live and I want them to be expert swimmers so I never have to worry about them with all the summer water activities. Yes, I will force them to do it for several years. They know it. I didn't use that word with them but I told them they will for sure do it until they can do every stroke all around the pool.
Funny story to end on: my last year of coaching, I brought a guy home that I was dating from college, who came to the banquet with me. We went swimming in the afternoon and while he was there, I was mortified at his attempt to swim. He looked like an old man. And let me tell you, he was 26 or 27 and I was 19. Can you say, too old for me? Well, once I saw him swim, it clinched it. I broke it off with him shortly after the visit. I could just never get the image of his weird side-stroke thing he was doing out of my mind. Isn't that hilarious? And it's not like I'm some Michael Phelps. I never swam in high school, other than summer league. I hated practice too much to do that to myself. Drill team was more my thing. But I knew after that that I would have to end up with someone who could at least do a decent freestyle. My husband can. (But I can beat him.)
Well, almost all files are finally restored to the new computer. It still might be a day or two before I can start uploading new ones but this one was already scanned in so here is all I have. I posted this on Facebook about a year ago just for fun. I'm in the very middle, next to my step-sister Missy. I know, we were really lucky to have all this growing up.
Reading this brought back so many memories. For over 20 years my dad (a teacher during the school year) spent summers managing a pool on the south side of Phoenix. I spent all day every day swimming in the pool, being buddies with the lifeguards, eating Otter Pops and Lemo Heads, turning the shade of a chocolate drop! In high school and college I lifeguard for the City of Phoenix Aquatics, taught swim lessons, coached synchronized swimming. It helped pay for college! The smell of wet pavement and chlorine on a hot summer's day never fails to take me back to those days. Thanks for this fun read!
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