Episodes from a Wayne Childhood, Pt.13

Of Wayne's two swimming clubs, Colonial Village and Martin's Dam, Martin’s, to which we belonged, was the older and more natural.  Where Colonial Village had concrete pools and artificial beaches, with umbrellas and wooden sidewalks, Martin’s was a single pond, perhaps 200 yards in diameter, created by damming the same creek that upstream ran through Colonial Village.  Martin's also was fed by natural springs (some of which we would find as cold spots, pluming up from the bottom, while we swam).  There was no chlorination, and except for a kids' area, no sand on the bottom, just mud. The water turned from clear to a thick muddy soup after rains, all tan and yellow, with sticks and leaves floating and totally opaque. It took two or three days to settle after a big storm, but if we were desperate, for heat or other reasons, we would swim in it anyway and need to shower later. The creek fed in at the eastern edge, in a marshy part, and the whole pond was surrounded by woods, with trees overhanging the water. Having passed Colonial Village, you came steeply down Croton Road and saw the water through the trees, the floats (square rafts for sunbathers, floating on fifty‑gallon oil drums, each anchored by a slimy chain to a cement‑filled bucket on the bottom), and on the far shore, the wooden bathing docks and cement bunker‑like central building, where the desk and changing rooms were.  Then the road curved around and crossed the spillway of the actual dam, where lily pads grew. The spillway itself wasn't more than six feet across, and standing on the road, you could look down over the other side, which was the back of someone's house and yard. The water didn't fall, really, so much as ran and spilled down rocks into a stream that continued west. One of our fears, if venturing to swim at that end, was of being sucked out with the current and spilled over.    

            The pond had evolved from a swimming hole in Dad's boyhood to a private club with the distinct improvements of the 50's that I recall, to ultimately, in my junior year, an over-sanitized layout of 3 concrete, chlorinated pools set in the landfilled center of what had once been our pond, all surrounded by a chain link fence, with grass and concrete to lie on and no sand. Our family felt this latest change as a desecration and a loss, though mainly for me, since my older brother and sister were gone by then, and we let the family membership lapse.

            In its prime, Martin's served as our stay‑at‑home summer resort, and our only relief from the heat and humidity. You entered, turning in a dirt road, where there was a gate and someone was supposed to check your membership sticker; the road then led to a gravel parking area, cleared from the woods, steeply hilly, and sloping down to the single‑story, cinderblock and concrete building that had locker rooms and showers for men on the left and for women on the right, and a sheltered concourse between the two. Here, on the left as you entered, was the Desk‑‑a recessed office, with a guestbook and first‑aid kit, where the adult club manager or his assistant sat. This was usually Jules Prevost, Radnor High's football coach and science teacher, but sometimes was his son, Jules, or one of the English teachers from Radnor, Mr. Napier.  Around the corner, with a private entrance facing the parking lot, was the lifeguards' "hut," with double bunk beds, icebox, stove, hi‑fi and TV. Altogether there were six or eight lifeguards, college age, some of whom bunked there, while others came and went for shifts. They formed a kind of fraternity, sharing the distinction of being the club's best swimmers and divers.

            When things were slow, in the morning, late afternoon, or after rain had cleared the pond, the lifeguards played wild, rollicking games of tag‑‑games that we imitated as we grew older‑‑and into which older kids, girls, too, would sometimes join.  They played all features of the club like an instrument, whooping, shouting, squealing, roaring, one guy charging full tilt across the "beach" in front of the locker rooms, spraying sand, chased heavily by another, up over picnic tables, then down a slope, breakneck, dodging trees, crashing through shrubs, over benches, one bound, a lunge and off the dock, back arched, arms out and up, to hit two or three body‑lengths out with a churning, splash‑kicking crawl, followed by the pursuer's lunge, flat out; or, other times, the dive plunged deep, and then a trail of bubbles, and the pursuer would be fooled, thinking they led towards a raft, while once he'd dived and swum in that direction, they'd curl around, heading back under the dock.  

            There was a rope, three inches in diameter, like the climbing ropes in gym, with a knot big enough for me to sit on at its end; it swung from the branch of a high, old elm, just as you came out of the men's bath house, and at the edge of a bank, which dropped ten feet or so into the water.  One of the lifeguards would leap and catch it on the run, swinging out wild and high, then let go and do a scrambling dive.

            Far out beyond these features, back almost to the opposite shore, were four or five anchored sunbathing floats; for practice, races, or just something to do, the stronger and usually older swimmers would "swim the rafts," starting from one stationery dock and swimming just outside the  semicircle, raft to raft and in again to another dock. There  were also several old diving boards floating in the pond, and if you got one alone you could paddle it around or float on it by yourself, sunbathing, or gangs of kids would play with one, standing together on one end and making it sink, then jumping  off, so it shot up dangerously.     

            Two active diving boards, blond, varnished, and with rough burlap mats right up to the springy end, were fixed along the main shore dock, and off on its own dock was a high board, perhaps fifteen feet up a ladder.  During meets there were diving contests, where one of the club's adult members, Mr. Joseph Krutch (he was a children's book illustrator, whose house was up a hill across the far road), would, despite his beer belly, hold us spellbound.  He could do gainers and triple gainers, back dives, back dives with tucks, somersaults; for some he would pause at the rear of the board, then with three powerful steps, jump, land heavily, so the board banged down, then spring powerfully high as it twanged, reaching for space and for time to throw and gather his body and to straighten up for entry, either perfectly feet‑first, or knife‑like, head‑first, straight down, with hardly a splash.   Other times, just hackers or beginners practiced in tee shirts, splat on their backs, or jumped off, holding a nose, for big cannonball splashes, or simple front dives.  A tall playground slide, down which you slid, headfirst, mostly, into the water, stood at the far end of the shore dock.          

            Both  my brother and sister, Chuck and Judy, were somebodies here, and I felt confident, known in their belonging.      

            Judy read paperbacks, sunbathed, and swam laps whole days at a time.  She practiced and practiced, not only for endurance, but for speed and grace in turns, flip and otherwise, for backstroke and for crawl; and for racing starts, the toe‑curled crouch, arms back, lunge and belly‑smack for crawl; the fetal curl in water against the boards for backstroke, then rush and swoop backwards.  There were swimming meets against other clubs, and Judy usually placed or won, collecting satin ribbons and standing on steps with other winners to have them pinned on, blue for first, red for second, yellow for third.  Her style, adapted from ballet, was fluid and seemingly effortless, her hands sliding into the water, while competitors on every side would be flailing.  I joined the team too when I was older, but rarely placed in anything.

            Mom went swimming with us occasionally.  She’d do the circuit of the rafts, then climbed up on one to sunbathe, self-conscious about her bad shoulder and her freckled back.  Dad, however, would go only once a year, as a kind of ritual‑‑one that must have bemused him with its link back to his boyhood.  Hairy, pale and flabby in his enormous trunks and ashamed of the scar on his leg, he would wade in ponderously, then gradually submerge, take a few breast‑strokes, sidestrokes, then turn over on his back, grinning and self‑satisfied to watch us watching.  Then he would come out, dry off and sit there smoking, watching us, and refusing to go in again that day, or any day again, until next year.