Learning to swim in the Ridgewood pool

Learning to swim in the Ridgewood pool.

by James K. Sayre

Have been blessed with very conscientious parents, we kids were taught to swim at an early age. I remember paddling about in the swimming pool in Ridgewood, New Jersey. This was back in the late 1940s. This pool must have been a dammed up pond, for it had a sandy bottom and was very large in extent. I remember a diving platform that was anchored way out in the deep water, way beyond my youthful experiences of paddling about in very shallow water right next to the sandy beach.

One Fourth of July town celebration included a greased watermelon contest that was staged with teenage boys as the contestants. In was held in a shallow pool, and the object was to grab and hold onto the watermelon, which was the prize. For little kids, it was just another odd event indulged in by bigger kids.

After we moved to Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, we were taught to swim in official swimming classes in the summer held in the mornings in the outdoor public pool.

P. S., after doing a little research on the Internet, I have discovered that this pool is called the Graydon Pool and that it was created about one hundred years ago. Apparently nowadays, it is plagued with muck and mire and year round Canadian Geese...

End.

Bottlebrush Press has maintained its presence on the Internet since 1996.

Return to the home page of Bottlebrush Press: The homepage of Bottlebrush Press

This web page was recently created by James K. Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Web page last updated on 12 September 2007.