On A Clear Day, You Can See The City Pool

A man was born with 6 fingers on each hand. He married a woman who also had 6 fingers on each hand. I guess they had that in common. They had a child named Ray, who, thanks to genetics, had 6 fingers on each hand. The parents worried that Ray might be teased by other kids so they educated him at home, they worshipped at home, the parents even found a doctor who had 6 fingers on each hand to come to their house whenever Ray needed medical care. Until he was 18, Ray believed everyone had 6 fingers on each hand. Then he went out of the nurturing biosphere his parents created and was surprised to find out that not everyone was like him. In fact, Ray soon found out that his difference was very unique and that almost no one else had 6 fingers on each hand. Ray was confused for a while, but then took pride in how he was different.

Ray is the Chaffee Swimming Pool.

Growing up in Chaffee, that pool was the focal point of every summer. It served as the babysitter, the activity center, a meeting place and the place where you met new people. Like Ray, I thought every community constructed a massive above ground pool. So when I went to college and started describing our pool, people did a double take when I described what it looked like. Turns out almost no one had ever seen such a sight. Like Ray, I had seen very little of the world outside my own so I was taken aback when others didn't grasp my description. But in time, just like Ray, I have grown to appreciate how unique that pool was and enjoyed the thought that Chaffee had something different.

The pool itself was constructed in the 1930's or somewhere near that. I am not a technical historian but the Chaffee Historical Society can probably give you the exact date if you are planning on putting that on some kind of history exam. Built by the WPA as part of the many public works projects to help pull our country out of the Great Depression. Apparently, the architect's blue prints had a typo, because when the construction began, instead of digging a hole and filling it with concrete (gunite for you technical types), the construction crew skipped the digging part and poured a swimming pool on top of the ground and built a concrete deck and dressing rooms around it. From the road, some thing they have just discovered Noah's Ark when they see the massive structure at the western edge of Harmon field. No gopher wood was used but you can easily see there are enough furlongs and cubits in the pool to house two of just about every animal.

There were other unique aspects to the pool. Some are gone these days.
The High Dive
A real high dive, with a rickety, shaky set of steps leading up to a 15 foot fixed board. Perhaps Chaffee was a fearless town because the citizens learned how to conquer fear up on that high dive. It was a thrill to jump off but that first time was as scary as anything I can ever remember. With the pool above ground, adding another 15 feet in height for the high dive, it probably should have had one of those blinking red lights to warn airplanes. I am sure insurance is the reason it was dismantled. How their wasn't a death associated with that thing is beyond me.
Depth Markers
Most pools have the water depth painted on the side of the deck to warn when you were literally, getting in over your head. Not at Chaffee, we pour a 2 foot wide, 1 foot tall block of concrete at 7 different spots poolside. Each block had a giant number in the center indicating how many feet of water were below you. There were no metric conversions. European visitors, of which there were few, would just have to do the conversions themselves. That is why there was a sign that said swim at your own risk. You had to risk that your ability to convert 1 inch into 2.54 centimeters was correct, or you would drown. The actually depth wasn't really needed to be shown. You assumed that the deep end was where the teenagers were jumping off a 15 foot high dive, and the shallow end was probably opposite of that where you notice 30 children under the age of 5, and the water is noticeably cloudier and not as blue. The markers themselves had a base paint coating to make the tops as slick as possible, so when you violated the rules and stood on top of them to dive in, there was an even better chance of getting injured.
The Rope
It was more than a divider of the deep and shallow. For some, it was the line of shame, the demarcation that you had not been able to swim across the pool and back in order to go over to the cool side. As I recall, the lifeguards never seemed to be carrying a ledger or any recording devices to validate which kids had qualified for the deep end by demonstrating their swimming abilities across the pool and back. So it was probably the honor system. Once you got to the deep end, you learned it was not that big of a deal and you ended up going back across the ropes so you could stand. I taught myself to high jump as a kid by submerging and then flopping over the rope. That was one of the rules the lifeguards always enforced, staying off the ropes. Not sure why.
The Lifeguard Chairs
I always wanted to be a lifeguard. Not to save lives, but just to look cool perched way up there in those chairs. 7 feet above everything else, the lifeguards had power in the city matched only by the mayor and a few incumbent aldermen. They acted oblivious to everyone. When it was safety check time, they stood on the chair and dove in from there. That was a diving board just for them. It made us all jealous.
The Steps
Hollywood award shows have their red carpet. 1950's debutantes descended the winding staircases. Everyone loves the grand entrance, and our pool accommodated this. When you came up through the dressing rooms or just up the stairs on the viewing side, you ascended the massive steps and into the spotlight, make that sunlight. All eyes were upon you as everyone had to see who was making their entrance. Guys coming up the dressing room steps usually crowned the last step and ran to a dive into the water just to take the attention off themselves. Girls would ascend, and make the long walk around the pool to the spot they would layout. All the guys would pause and watch the pomp and circumstance of a girl's entry as though we were watching someone from the House of Windsor in formal procession. Visitors ascended their stairs and those in the pool paused to check them out. They had a lot of pressure because they had to decide where to watch and whether they would risk life and limb and sit atop the top rails where if they slipped, they would fall 15 feet to the ground below. All the pool needed was an announcer as each person entered like they did in the old English days. "Your attention, announcing the arrival of the Earl of Davidson, Master Douglas Sanders and his patented 'preacher's seat' moves on the diving board."
The Slide
Removed again, likely for insurance purposes, because it was 12 feet of ladder that some young kid was bound to fall off. It was fun as I recall.
The Drain
For strong swimmers with good underwater vision, you could dive down a ridiculously deep 15 feet to the drain. Legend has it that some had gotten stuck in the grates. It was really deep.

For a pool to be around 70 years, there is bound to have been a drowning or two but I can't recall any. I do remember as a kid that a really nice girl from our church, Robin Harris, had wrecked her bike into the side of the pool and later died from injuries to her kidney. I am sure there are plenty of cuts and bruising from slips while running across the deck, or from bold teenagers on the diving board doing the cutaway dive. As we grew older, the other adventure, and it was a dumb one, was climbing over the side of the pool for a free after hours swim.   Lucky there weren't fatalities with that.

One other thing that I loved as a teenager, the pool was where all the out of town girls who were visiting their grandparents would go during the summer. Sure, most of the girls who knew me thought I was goofy, but here was a whole batch of outsiders who had yet to discover they shouldn't go out with me. Every summer, there were half a dozen girls from far away who I almost got bold enough to ask out. Not exactly the basis for a John Hughes film like the Breakfast Club.

So that is the story of Ray, I mean "our pool". It is hard to describe to outsiders, but if you were like me, there wasn't a summer of your youth where you didn't have a season pass and spend nearly every day there. Some day, either through cracks or liability concerns, someone will garner enough votes to replace that pool. I hope not. I wish some of the old historic buildings in town were still there just to see and imagine. The massive Frisco offices, the Sunoco station across from it, the old city hall, the ice house, the Bank of Chaffee, the Bowling Alley, the Horstman (remnants still there?), the Astoria Hotel. All are gone because of progress or practicality. I wish they were still around so I and my kids could look and imagine when they thrived.   The pool is one thing in town only a couple other places in the country can brag on. In the end, Ray was always proud of his 6 fingers and generations that followed always found interest in his differences.