-
Boys and Girls
May 1, 2013 | 0 comments
-
American Rand Stand
April 1, 2013 | 0 comments
-
Sounds of Silence
March 2, 2013 | 0 comments
-
Clearing the Air
February 2, 2013 | 0 comments
-
We’ve Survived Worse
December 1, 2012 | 0 comments
Last Call
Swimming Pool
That’s it for this year.
They’re all about the passage of time, but summer is the only season that causes hurt when it’s over. We all remember being ripped away from its freedoms and returned to the clutches of dread school. It sure has a way of spoiling you for life. We know it breaks hearts — hard to imagine Jo Stafford singing “The things we did last winter I’ll remember all summer long.” Yet once the tribulations of youth are behind you, and even though time begins to speed, summer remains special, each year’s better than the previous. Which is why September is ever the cruelest month.
It dawned on me back in the early Reagan years on a short vacation trip to Mackinaw City in upper Lower Peninsula Michigan. It was early fall and the place was deserted. A summer resort had become a ghost town. Nothing but a long stretch of empty motels, eateries, and amusement parks. There had once been life here?
I don’t need to travel as far these days to feel the same pang. It’s enough to walk or drive past my favorite summer spot — my neighborhood’s community pool. Perfect in size — eight 25 m. lanes wide, with diving and wading areas jutting out at opposite ends-and bordered on three sides by leafy parkland, it’s also closed for nine months of the year, locked away behind its fence and utterly abandoned. From the perspective of non-summer it’s difficult to recall what it was like to be inside that fence and better yet in the refreshing water, swimming laps and looking up at open sky in idyllic surroundings.
All right, not always idyllic, if you factor in the noise splashing children can generate. All that squealing energy. At this pool, at a quarter to every hour the lifeguard blows her whistle, for the obligatory rest break for anyone under 16. I knew our older son would be going places when as a small boy he’d scurry to the baby pool tucked in a corner of the property to wait out this unwarranted restriction of his aquatic activity. When the whistle blew again at the top of the hour, he’d be the first kid back in the pool, unrested, but his dignity intact.
To swim around here in non-summer one has to move indoors. Who can stand that? I tried it for a time but the unventilated chlorine was relentless and a 30-minute shower and tall glass of Listerine were powerless against its garlicky residue. Besides, swimming indoors is like swimming in an overheated cage. The idea is to emerge reinvigorated, not polluted.
I blame my tastes on growing up in Southern California, where I didn’t know one could swim inside and where I think the outdoor pool was invented. The Pacific was great, but also cold and murky and clogged with sea weed not to mention the ubiquitous tar. The local city pool, “The Plunge,” was huge but also ideal for children — I taught myself to swim there, in three feet of water, just like that. And your feet didn’t get sandy when you got out. There was just something about being in that baby blue water the ocean never could match. Even the sun reflected differently on it.
When friends of my parents came to town and stayed in oceanfront hotels, I’d go along with them on visits but instead of joining everyone on the beach would sneak off to the hotel’s outdoor pool. That was the life! But that was also the West Coast and the home of endless summer.
Back in the real America we take our seasons more seriously and we’re about to leave the best one behind. Our community pool closes on Labor Day, and the next day its squealing children will take their energies with them to their first day in school, a few blocks away. If the weather holds up, the pool may reopen the following weekend. But not for its normal 11 to 9 summer hours, just noon till six. No use thinking a few stolen days can bring back the real thing.
About the Author
Wlady Pleszczynski is editorial director of The American Spectator and the editor of AmSpec Online.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (20) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Wlady Pleszczynski
More Articles From Last Call
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/09/10/swimming-pool
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- A Nation on the Edge
- Razing Reagan
- Ailes: A Voice for the Silent Majority
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Kitty| 9.10.10 @ 6:26AM
I'm not a summer lover, although it wouldn't be so bad if not for the humidity. Summer for me is an endurance test. Not that September's weather is great, but it's usually swept in by a Canadian clipper of cool, crisp air.
Appleby| 9.10.10 @ 7:12AM
Last weekend I spent Labour Day perched on a rooftop watching a really great air show. Below me, at a downtown water park, parents stood in rain, wind and freezing weather watching their children frolic in bumper boats, splattering water everywhere. Kids will swim (and scream) well into October -- its their parents who drain the pools and order them into sweaters.
JohnD| 9.10.10 @ 9:37AM
Even with the intolerable Maryland heat and humidity, I love the summer. Autumn is so depressing, the ever shortening days, the ever cooling weather, and the green leaves that signify life turning brown and signifying death.
It is only the start of football season, and the joys of Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, and Christmas season that salvage the fall. Thank God for Christmas, which tempers the dreariness of the shortest days of the year with the joy of friends, family, good food, and alcohol.
JohnD| 9.10.10 @ 9:42AM
As for Christmas, dinner at my sister's house nearby means a large punchbowl of her famous Chrsitmas "death nog:" Egg Nog with dark rum, Grand marnier, brandy, and bourbon.
It looks and tastes like Sherwin Williams Exterior Latex House Paint, but it helps you to forget how much money you spent on gifts.
jrs| 9.10.10 @ 11:09AM
Even as a good student w/ plenty of friends, I always remember a sense of depression set in the last two weeks of summer as you realize it has come to a close. Our parents attempts at bribery (the new shoes and clothes for back to school) only provided a short reprieve. I grew up not that long ago (80s and 90s), but as I start thinking about kids w/ my fiance and talk to my coworkers, I realize successful parenting today means summer isn't that much different from the school year with endless camps, lessons, etc... I guess the bright side is they won't even know the difference between summer and the school year.
Anommynous| 9.10.10 @ 12:58PM
Oh man, I hate the summer. Summer is the season for allergies and for mowing lawns. Autumn is by far my favorite season. The weather is pleasantly mild, the trees are colorful, and football has arrived. As the gateway to autumn, I welcome September with open arms.
GingerSnap| 9.10.10 @ 1:27PM
Just look forward to each season positively and grateful that God has given you life.
janet| 9.10.10 @ 4:02PM
You have perfectly captured the melancholy passing of summer into autumn.
I too measure our my life in (iced) coffee spoons and the magic of 50 laps in the morning sun.
Labor Day signifies an end to one more blessed intermission in the inexorable march to that sad final dip.
Quartermaster| 9.10.10 @ 5:52PM
Fall is my favorite time of year. The smell of the leaves, the crisp non-humid days are something I savor. Particularly here in the Mountains of NC.
Leveut| 9.10.10 @ 9:40PM
Our community pool also closed on Labor Day.
Woe is me.
GEORGE | 9.11.10 @ 12:47AM
September 1st, what a glorious day! No more 100^
days...Labor day, football, cool weather, autumn,
Halloween, gold & red leaves, Thanksgiving,
hiking, camping. In Texas, the end of summer is
a cause for celebration.
Presenter | 10.22.10 @ 6:00AM
its such a nice article to read, great post
Joanna | 6.6.11 @ 5:49AM
I agree with most of these comments too.
UTI Treatment
Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 5:40AM
They're all about the passage of time, but summer is the only season that causes hurt when it's over. We all remember being ripped away from its freedoms and returned to the clutches of dread school.
0xf4 | 10.8.11 @ 5:00PM
Really nice story...Summer's end is always somewhat depressing, but fall has some vague sweet sadness I enjoy tremendously. In fact, I cannot swim in pools - I hate the sense of the water being shared with so many people and so limited. Like baking a bath with a crowd of total strangers.