First above ground pool

 As a boy on summer vacation, I got to sleep in a little, but not too much. It was usually the sounds of a Saturday morning that woke me. The roar of a distant lawnmower, cars being washed, the radio playing top hits, and sometimes my buddies throwing pebbles at my bedroom window. Come on, Mikey, they'd shout, get your but up, we got stuff to do today, remember? If we had our way, every day would come with something to do and stuff to see. But this particular Saturday was the day my uncle's toy store introduced its line of outdoor above-ground swimming pools in three sizes. They held a lottery of sorts to be one of 15 kids who could swim in all three pools. But just because they were my uncles, my chances were as good as any kid's. Turned out my luck wasn't with me that Saturday, but the next Saturday was, as the delivery truck from my uncle's store pulled up to my house, where my dad and a helper set up the first above-ground pool in our neighborhood. You've heard the expression 'watching ink dry, well, that's what we did as the garden hose slowly filled the pool, and wrinkles were flattened as the weight of the water smoothed the bottom. It was about noon when watching it slowly got boring, until we heard what turned out to be a buddy of my dad's, a fireman, pull up to our house and greet everyone. Thought maybe we could make a deal, he told my dad. I'll fill your pool in a matter of minutes in exchange for a swim. Deal, my dad said, and the fireman made good on his end and filled the pool to the top in fifteen minutes. I'll be back for that swim, he told my dad when the water warms up a little. With that, he was gone, the pool filter and ladder were in place, and we were told to go ahead and have fun. I don't remember whose screams were the loudest, mine or my buddy's, as we hit the icy-cold water that turned our lips purple and made our skin feel like a popsicle. But I can say this: we got out just as fast as we got in. We should have listened to the fireman.

As we got older, and the pool did too, it was decided that it wasn't cost-effective anymore, with numerous patches and always a pinhole leak everywhere you looked. We drained our memories onto the grass that flowed to the street and vanished, leaving us feeling a little sad. How many games of Marco-Polo? How many alone times with your girlfriend or late nights under the backyard lights? How many nieces and nephews were taught to swim, and how many backyard picnics were held while kids swam, with parents keeping a sharp lookout?  As the decades passed and the backyard pool was just a memory, I sometimes drive by the old house and the garden where the pool once stood, and I can hear those words, "Marco-Polo," and slowly drive away.

Mike 2026