Sheridan Park or Cudahy High School pool were always available during my first twelve years of life. I had started swimming at an early age. Chlorine coursed through my veins. The end of the school year meant leaving clothes in the drawers of my dresser and wearing my swimming suit day in and day out and running around bare-foot until the fall when I had to force my feet back into socks and shoes.
I used to love standing on the side of the pool and falling into the water, letting it catch me as I imagined I was a graceful mermaid turning back into my fish-like state.
School year meant coming home from classes, wrapping my suit into a towel. Eating supper as quickly as possible, watching a few minutes of "Laugh-in" and heading out the door with my sisters and brother to swim club.
There wasn't a time in those early Cudahy days that I can remember not swimming. It was part of who I was. I didn't get sea sick in boats, just got headaches because I wanted to jump in the water.
So imagine my surprise and disappointment when we moved to Oak Creek and there wasn't a pool that I could just walk to and go swimming in. The High School pool didn't have a nice sunny deck you could walk out on and lay in the sun in the summer time. It was only open certain nights during the school year.
Most of my friends in the neighborhood didn't have pools. Arlys did, but for some reason I don't think her family would have enjoyed me in their pool for the entire summer.
But we did have a creek! (Pronounce it like it rhymes with Rick).
My dad warned me about swimming in the creek. He said it wasn't as clean as the pool and who knows what was lingering beneath the water.
So of course, that was were I would go swim. I would tell him that I was going to my friend Diane's house. Truth is, Diane and her brother Walter would usually go swimming with me. In the creek (see pronunciation hint above)
We spent days down there building rafts and jumping off. We were quite good at the raft building, using wood and nails from the scrap piles of homes that were being built in the subdivision. There were always logs floating in the creek - waterlogged - perfect for floats. We would lash or nail the boards to the logs and “voilà” you'd have a raft.
We would swim out to the raft, jump off, lay on it for sunning. It was great. Oh and pick the blood sucking leeches off our arms and legs. They seemed to find you quite quickly. The creek wasn't all that wide, but in those days, any form of swimming would suit my needs.
We probably built two or three rafts that summer - rains would come and wash them down stream. Sometimes we would find them and repair it for use, most times we didn't.
Now, when you swim in a creek and you've told your father that you were going to be in a pool you needed a way for him to believe you. Did you know that bleach and chlorine have a similar smell? Yuup, you guessed it, just a little bit on your hands and you'd smell like you came from the clean pool and not the filthy creek.
I do have to admit, though, my dad was right about one thing. You didn't really know what was in the water. I have the scars to prove it - you see - many people threw old bottles in the the area where we swam, and many times you would push off the bottom, only to be met by a skin altering tear and the need for bandages and iodine. Or your foot would find a long lost fishing hook.
Things like that never seemed to phase me - I enjoyed my time and I found my water. That was all that truly mattered.
I think my life was saved the year that Lori's parents decided to put in an above ground pool. The deal was that if we helped we could go swimming.
Her father would come home from work, and head into the backyard to level the ground and make sure all the rocks were out of the area so it didn't tear the liner. Now, in my minds eye I was there every second, combing the ground for rocks, sweating right along with her dad, making sure that this would be the best pool install ever. I am almost positive, I wasn't. But you know, kid logic.
The day came and we all stood around the walls of the pool and held onto the liner as it slowly stretched and took shape. It was a glorious thing.
Her poor parents didn't know what they had bargained for when they made the agreement. My sister, brother and I would sit on their deck while they ate supper and anxiously awaited for them to finish so we could go swimming. It seemed like they took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to finish eating. Then the washing of the hands and clearing of the table. Years went by while we waited.
Finally they would emerge from their patio doors (they had closed the curtain for some reason, must have been the sun) and we would all go down and jump in, playing volleyball, diving for coins and making whirlpools.
I wonder, looking back, if her parents ever got to use the pool by themselves? I sure do owe them for saving me from a life of bleach and leeches.
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