swimming pool........

i want to thank my friend janis for sending me this picture a few months ago....its the Carmen Ranch Club...its a swimming pool and clubhouse that our parents belonged (1960's) to so that they could let loose wild children. it worked, i think. looking closer at the photo, that might be me, janis and suzy putnam (wearing red), standing off shyly to the right. that was after we were a bit older. our homes can be seen up the hill.

i loved it at Carmen. there was a big pool (partly shown here), check out the bad starting blocks!,
a little padding pool and a lower level pool, that was open all the time for children and teens. the upper pool had adult swim. we used to get crabby about waiting for the adults to quit their slow swimming with their heads up out of the water, so that we could go back to swimming the adult pool. it had a high dive and a regular diving board. as soon as the adult swim was over, a lifeguard whistle blew and cannonballs bombarded throughout. adults scrambled for cover.
i have been thinking about this pool lately (long ago bulldozed over) i don't know why it ended that way. i guess insurance on a place like that was part of it. and maybe during the 70's 80's moms were working more and didn't have time to take the kids to the club anymore.
i remember loving the fact that i could swim all day and eventually look around the upper pool for my mom and her pocket book, the snack bar being my second favorite feature. my mom - always loved shiny swim suits and lounged around with her sophisticated friends, sunning themselves and gossiping, some smoking cigarettes. i was always amazed at how long they could just do that - immobile sunning. janis and i and suzy loved to run wild.

anyway, i don't remember ever seeing icky stuff floating in the pool (see, post of last weekend).
sure, occasionally a kid would throw up after too many sweets at the snack bar and sunstroke, but that was to be expected.


thanks for the memories, janis.
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today i went back to 24 hour fitness to swim. i checked it carefully for gross stuff in the water before jumping in. it appeared clean.
i'm only a bit worried though, that i mat have contracted athlete's foot from the shower room though. ugh! i'm bring my own bleach next time.