If Wishes Were Cool Water

I don't think I need to tell anyone that resides in these United States that is has been a long, hot summer.

**If you are in your 30's and beyond you might remember that the Long, Hot Summer was made into a made for TV movie (original was a scathing version in the theater in 1958) with Cybil Shepherd and Don Johnson.  It was almost too hot for TV.  I remember watching it from the top of the stairs outside my bedroom while my Mom had it on in the basement.**

Anyway, sorry for the sidebar but that is what the heat and humidity in the northeastern US will do to you, not fry, but slowly poach your brain.  It will also cause your hair to look like crap most of the time.

When I was little, we had a neighbor who had a pool.  Her name was Ada; so it was naturally, Ada's Pool.  It was a holdover from the pools of the 1950's; big, L-shaped and  had a 'deep end' of 10ft.  It was fed by spring water which meant is was REALLY cold for half the summer.  It didn't really matter though.  We were cold water kids.  We swam in the waters off Cape Cod.  To us, blue lips were cool.  The only bad part about the cold pool water was when we came home and had to race past the air conditioning unit in the dining room of the house, towels tightly wrapped around bare skin, otherwise you might freeze solid in the middle of the living room.

This summer I wished I was that little kid again.  We know very few people with pools and those we do know live further than next door and no one has a pool from the 1950's.  On really hot days this year I would find myself daydreaming or half remembering the joy of being able to play in a pool of cool water: having my Mom rate my dives off the diving board, Marco Polo, swimming through weighted hoops and diving for coins.  I remembered what it was like 'going under' that first time of the day, the rush I would get from the cold water enveloping my skin and quickly reducing the surface temperature of my body.  Then I'd pop up and the water would stream down my hair, chlorine stinging my eyes a little not just from the chemical but also from the sun reflecting off the water.

These days pools are small, shallow, square and are usually the temperature of warm pee by early July.  They cannot compare to the cold spring water, 10 foot depths and 1950's curves of Ada's pool.

On the hot days that are still due to come, you'll find me cruising along the bottom of Ada's pool or jumping off the diving board in a glorious cannonball trying to make it down to 10 feet...in my mind at least.