Summertime

Ahhhhh, summertime, and the livin’ is easy.  Growing up in small town America in the late 40’s and early 50’s, nobody took a summer vacation away from home.  At least nobody I knew.  A few families did have beach houses that they either owned or rented.  Not many.   So, I really didn’t think I was deprived of anything.  The community swimming pool was open from 1:00 p.m. until about supper time and that was as close as most folks got to a vacation.

I can still smell the chlorine now!  It was sparkling clear water and the place to be on a summer day.   It would be packed with kids of all ages.  There was a small pool where Mothers would take their little ones to play.  They would chat and visit all afternoon while the little ones played until they turned blue and shivered with cold.

Most of the time, I would have to walk to the pool.  It was several blocks from where I lived and summertime in southeastern Georgia is not for sissies.  The pavement would burn your feet to a crisp and the sandspurs would send you howling to the nearest emergency room if you weren’t careful so I hated to have to walk but I didn’t have a choice.  Walk or stay home.  Those were the choices in my day.    

The girls I knew would carefully roll up their Catalina, Rose Marie Reid, or Esther Williams (these were all the rage of the day) swim suits and bathing caps in a large beach towel.  They had to be rolled just right or the whole thing would unwind and your suit would fall out.  Or worse, if you wore your suit to the pool and chose to roll up your clothes in the towel, your underwear might wiggle its way right out of that towel in front of the whole crowd at the pool.  I had that happen more than once. 

There was a grassy area near the sliding board where we would spread our towels and lay out in the sun after we had slathered ourselves with baby oil mixed with iodine.  That was supposed to give you a drop dead gorgeous tan.  It gave me a drop dead awful sunburn which peeled off in huge ugly globs of skin and left a million freckles in its place.  Just what I needed to complete my drop dead gorgeous beauty! 

Shy Boy was always there and he and the other boys would compete for who could do the most flips off the diving board, which they weren’t supposed to be doing anyway.  Then they would stand on their hands, play tag, run, jump off the diving board, and do everything possible to gain the attention of all the girls sitting on their towels getting their gorgeous tans pretending not to notice.    

There was a little store where you could buy cokes and candy and a dressing room where you could shower and change and re-roll your towel.  It didn’t matter this time how you rolled it up.   It’s getting close to supper time and the pool closes soon.  Swimming all afternoon can make you mighty hungry!