At my physical theraphy the other day one of the therapists put on the sound track to The Big Chill. It has some great songs on it, a lot of oldies I listened to at the Clarion pool when I was a kid.
My mother dropped us off at the pool and we swam the afternoon away. Every so often, the lifeguards would blow the whistle. We groan and get out of the pool and sit quietly on the edge of the pool with our feet out of the water. I remeber the whole place quieted down. The head lifeguard, a barrel shaped, hairy guy, named Norm, wouldn't let us get back in the water until we were silent.
I don't know how he did it. Now that I think of it, he probably just wanted a couple minutes of peace and quiet. Because when he blew that whistle signaling the end of the time-out, a couple hundred kids hit the water squealing.
Songs like "The Tracks of My Tears" and "Give Me Good Lovin;'" played on WWCH, our top forties radio station and blared out across the water. I never knew I even heard those songs, I just swam. I just dove and jumped and did hand stands while the music played on.
So the other day while I walked on the tread mill and used the weights as the Bill Chill soundtrack played it took me right back. I could see that skinny kid in the red one piece suit racing her friends to the deep end. Lessie (me at nine or ten?) really had fun in that pool. And that music came complete with a whiff of chlorine.
How happy, that once upon a time everything was right with the world if I just swam like a dolphin across the blue chlorine of the town pool with no thought in my head except to be there in that splashy chlorine moment.
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