Genealogists and family historians get a lot of satisfaction
from chasing their ancestors’ stories. Finding a diary, a message on a
postcard, or a photo with a name attached is like the sun coming out after a
storm. One day we will be somebody’s ancestor. We need to leave our descendants
a little bit of sunshine too. So here is my story told alphabetically, not
chronologically: Growing Up in Cradock.
is for swimming.
Children dressed in only a swimsuit and flip-flops with a
towel tucked under an arm passed by my house routinely throughout the summer
when I was a kid. I would be filled with envy because I knew where they were
going.
The Dinky Pool.
It was just a small community pool in a park on the
corner of Bainbridge Avenue and George Washington Highway. There was no diving board
because there was no deep end. It was basically a wading pool. But there was a
lifeguard.
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| image from Google Maps There is a skate park where the Dinky Pool used to be. |
My mother never let me go to the Dinky Pool. Never. Why?
She feared I would contract polio. Polio was the big scare of the day reaching
its peak in the 1950s. My mother was not the only one who thought that polio
could spread in a public pool; it was a common view. My friend Sharon’s sister
had polio, so I knew it would not be an easy life in iron braces, unable to
run, roller skate, and jump rope. I was obedient about staying away from the
Dinky Pool even after the Salk and Sabin vaccines were introduced in the early
1960s. Vaccine via sugar cube – what could be better than that? I wish more
medicine came on a sugar cube.
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| Lake Ahoy in the 1960s photo courtesy Cradock Alumni & Friends Facebook Group |
The Dinky Pool was not the only place deemed off-limits by my cautious mother. Lake Ahoy was likewise on Momma’s list of disgusting places. If it wasn’t the polio thing, then maybe it was the “pee and poop” thing. Everybody I knew LOVED Lake Ahoy. Nobody died from it despite rumors of “things” found floating in the lake. I was SOMEBODY’s guest ONE time. How I managed to snag permission that one time can only be chalked up to my mother possibly being too embarrassed to say “no” and having to justify her answer to somebody's parents. She must have crossed her fingers and said an extra prayer for my safety.
On most steamy hot days, a garden hose and lawn sprinkler
were our only means of relief. But then came Tuesday. On Tuesdays, my dad’s day off from work at Sears
& Roebuck, we all headed to Virginia Beach. Daddy always went in first
to test the waves. We rented a raft from the lifeguard. It was a heavy-weight
canvas, sturdy, better than what you could buy in the store. My sister and I
would plop ourselves across the raft and hang onto the edges as Daddy dragged
us out to sea. When a big wave came, he’d duck under it while hoisting us up
just at the crest so we could ride the wave to shore. Sometimes we would be
thrown off, tumbling and rolling in the sand. It was scary, but we always went
back for more. “Do it again, Daddy. Do it again!”
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| Momma, Mary Jollette, and Daddy Virginia Beach |
The sagacious among you sedentary spectators should slip
on over to the A to Z April Challenge to scrutinize some scintillating and
sardonic selections that will surely leave you feeling satiated.
I agree with you about the medicine. I think that all of it should come in sugar cubes...or marshmallows. Or, maybe even chocolate chip cookies. haha
ReplyDeleteI remember going to a public swimming pool when I was a kid, but I do not remember going into the water. When my 4th grade class got to take swimming lessons, I was sick and had to stay on the sidelines watching everyone else have fun in the water. When I was about 13 years old, I was playing in my aunt's swimming pool. Though I still didn't know how to swim properly, I could swim underwater, just not regular swimming. I slid down the slide into the deep end and hit the water too hard and inhaled a lot of water. I almost drowned. I'm still scared of swimming pools.
I went to Virginia Beach as a child, too. It was in the early to mid-1970s. One of my other aunts lived in Norfolk and we took her back home from her visit with us. While there, we went to Virginia Beach. My most vivid memory of that trip, aside from the broken big toe, is of my daddy carrying me into the water so that I wouldn't miss out on the fun that the others were having. :)
Have a blessed day!
I've had my share of pool scares too. One time some silly boy pushed me in and I didn't see it coming. I didn't know which way was up. I finally surfaced sputtering and coughing. That ruined my day!
DeleteWhen we were kids, my sister caught hepatitis from swimming in an estuary near where we lived. Maybe your mother was right to be worried, Wendy.
ReplyDeleteOh that's not good either. Considering how polio was spread, Momma probably was right. Who knows what kind of cleaning they did at the pool. It wasn't a very modern pool.
DeleteIn Australia public swimming pools were where we all learned to swim. We would be taken there in a bus from school for lessons and there were also lessons in the school holidays. And on a different note, I loved the sugar cube Polio vaccine - so much better than a needle! Leanne @ cresting the hill
ReplyDeleteI did not live in an area that had pools in the public school. I didn't learn to swim until I went to college and it was a required course.
DeleteAs I read this I couldn't help but wonder what stories my kids will tell on me someday about my irrational mother fears. It seems to come with the territory. I too remember the sugar cube Polio vaccine.
ReplyDeleteMy girls are already telling stories on me. Sheesh -- they remember all the bad stuff and not how fantastic I was.
DeleteAs you know from last years 'Bathing Beauty Bombs', I was not only a drowned rat, but also a survivor of lake swimming. It also so happens I spent lots of time at our small town public pool with so much chlorine poured in there was no way any germs/diseases could be contracted...unless you count the 'red eye'. I don't remember sugar cube polio vaccine...just the shots and boosters. Good story and pictures.
ReplyDeleteSue at CollectInTexas Gal
I doubt the Dinky Pool had chlorine but don't hold me to it.
DeleteI never had the cube, just remember when the shots. I remember my paternal grandmother warning us not to play too hard in the summer so that we wouldn't get polio. That was before the shots.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have a public pool in the neighborhood but they used to have open swimming at the junior high school. I went once with my best friend, but my mother came along and decided it was too rough and I had to wait to be able to take swimming during school hours in junior high to get in any swimming.
There were stories about things floating in the lake at Metropolitan Beach, which we never went to.
In the summer now I watch the local young people walking past my house going to the local community pool around the corner.
It sounds like your mom and mine thought alike. Momma did not like rough playing at the pool either.
DeleteKids got polio in our small town too and they closed the beach. That when Dad decided to build a cottage on a lake. The land was cheap through his eork. The lake was pristine. We spent the whole summer there. In swimsuits and flip-flops. One time my grampa thought he was being nice and took my brother and I to the Natatorium, but I hated it.... couldn't stand the chlorine smell nor all the crowds of kids.
ReplyDeleteThat chlorine can be strong especially when it's just been applied or applied incorrectly. No wonder you didn't like it, especially after having a lake practically to yourself.
DeleteOh the memories at the beach :) Those were fine times indeed!
ReplyDeleteI can see your mom's concern about the Dinky Pool. Why take any chances. I'm sure my mom would have been the same.
Yep, many a time through the sprinklers on hot summer days.
betty
Sprinklers will always be the icon of summer.
DeleteIn Blackpool where I lived there was an international size swimming pool (the Derby Baths) where I learned to swim - we were bussed there from primary school for swimming lessons and we had our school swimming gala there. But lessons all stopped for a time In the early 1950's because of the polio scare. Two girls from my class fell to the illness, though fortunately not to the worst aspects of the disease. I remember some years later getting the sugar cube vaccine.
ReplyDeleteNo pools in our public schools where I grew up. In fact, very few communities had pools. Maybe that's because we had the beach so close by. Now community pools are more common.
DeleteI didn't know about people's fears regarding swimming pools and a possible link to polio. I had the sugar cube too. I swam in lots of pools, lakes, the ocean...we seem to be a nation of swimmers in Australia. I hasten to add that I am not a fabulous swimmer - I just plod along.
ReplyDeleteI'm more at home on a lounge chair or hammock than in water.
DeleteYou've just given me a lightbulb moment. Maybe it was the fear of polio that caused us to have to walk through a chemically treated foot pool en route to the oLympic pool. I've always thought in adulthood that it was to do with fungal infections but you never see those dips any more. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteMost pools at gyms, hotels and resorts ask you to rinse off before going in. I'm not sure what that accomplishes.
DeleteApart from that detour, like Alex, we are a nation of water-babies whether we're good swimmers or not. BEach, surf, lake, pool anything will do, including the sprinklers. And always swimmers and flip flops, or as we call them, thongs (but not the underwear variety!)
ReplyDelete