Hardy Kids Have Last Splash In Chilly County Pools

It wasn’t great weather.

A shaft of sunlight or two would pierce the clouds for 30 seconds, then get swallowed up again by the hanging curtain of grey.

That didn’t keep Valley youngsters away from Park Pool on Friday. It was the last day most county pools were open. Valley Mission will close Sunday.

These chilled kids weren’t just persevering because it was the pool’s last day. They were getting their final swim lessons for the year.

Amber Benner, 8, just got out of the pool. She passed the gantlet with flying colors.

How was the water, anyway? Cold?

Amber had little to say. She just nodded and shivered, burying herself in a Mickey Mouse towel. Except for her swim test, she chattered, “I … wouldn’t … have … come.”

Just then, another batch of kids was going off the diving board. That was the idea, anyway.

One little guy wouldn’t go. He would stoop down, look at the water, then stand up straight again. “C’mon, you can do it,” a few adults hollered.

Alli Groat, 15, was the pool aide watching the boy. She got up on the board with him. “One, two, three, go!” she said.

Nope. You’ll have to do better than that, the boy said with his hug-the-board body language. Groat moved a little closer behind him. Possibly fearing a shove, the boy took the plunge.

Sarah Mustered, 8, was next. Her grandmother, Bette Gold, watched.

“I was terrified to see her go in the water at first. She couldn’t swim,” Gold said of Sarah before her two weeks of lessons.

Sarah wouldn’t dive the first week. “She was hot-glued to the board, I tell ya,” Gold said.

Sarah stood up on the board, and looked at a lifeguard.

“Can I go off?” she asked. The lifeguard nodded.

SPLASH! Sarah wasn’t scared anymore. She loved it.

“It’s a miracle,” Grandma said. “Only 15 bucks a kid.”

After the lessons, kids swarmed around the pool staff. “Everyone did a great job. You improved a great deal,” lifeguard Tony Dreher, 21, said in a business-like voice.

“You passed, I’m so proud of you!” said Becky Byers, a mother with four of her five kids learning to swim. “Go tell the lifeguards thanks for the lessons.”

A chorus of young voices piped up: “THANK YOU!”

The parents said thanks, too. They collectively gave the staff two cakes, a bundle of balloons and a box of cookies.

Is Aug. 18 too early to close the pools? No, said Park Pool manager Denise Canfield, 23. She’s a student at WSU, and many of her staff are college students, too. They have to ship off to school soon.

Those lifeguards who are still around will now work at the county swimming beach at Liberty Lake, which will remain open through Labor Day.

The pool was now empty. Just as kids started piling into minivans, the sun broke through the clouds, chasing away the marble ceiling. The lifeguards looked up at the sky.

Thursday’s high temperature had been a record-cold 59 degrees. Friday’s high was in the 60s. Come Monday, the forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-90s.

What a rip.

, DataTimes