Six swims, six pools: so long, lap of luxury
Six Final Swims: My Thursday Journal.
11:30 a.m. Shadle’s indoor pool is so rundown that even the clock, which reads 8:40, is broken. A dozen children swim around me. After a few laps, I peer out the windows to the outdoor pool. It’s drained, a concrete cemetery for memories.
I swam in Shadle’s outdoor pool last summer. Didn’t realize it would be my last opportunity. The outdoor pool, and all but one of the city’s wading pools, were closed permanently between last summer and this summer. Park officials and community members are studying the future of all city pools. Doubtful that all six will close by next summer, but I don’t want to chance it, hence my plan to swim in each one today.
On my way out of Shadle, tears fill my eyes. I loved all the city’s pools, but Shadle was my favorite. Soon, the indoor pool will be gone for good, too. On life support now.
3:30 p.m. It’s 94 degrees outside when I jump into Witter Pool at Mission Park on the North Side. The tradition of free Spokane swimming began at this site in 1914, after drownings in the Spokane River worried city officials.
My mother, now 84, swam here as a child, in an older pool that was replaced in 1960. A newspaper photographer once took a picture of her posing by the pool, holding an apple. Her 80-something friends still reminisce about their childhood swimming experiences, about Natatorium Park’s pool, about hopping trains to area lakes.
The lifeguard blows her whistle at four boys jumping on each other. I ponder all the cool swimming-culture words that will be lost when the pools close, such as roughhousing and horseplay.
6 p.m. Because of other Thursday obligations, and limited pool hours, my swimming schedule is tight. Two hours left, four pools to go. At Hillyard, I beg the lifeguards to let me do a lap during swimming lessons, because open swim doesn’t commence for a half-hour.
As I swim, I listen to the instructors’ gentle voices. They repeat the universal child affirmation – Good job! – while the children practice floating. What will happen to lessons if the pools close?
6:25 p.m. Fifty people wait for open swim at Liberty Pool on Spokane’s southeast side. De’mon Duke, father of five children, ages 4 to 10, has heard the rumor that the city pools might close and be replaced by water parks where fees will be charged.
“I’m outraged by it,” he says. “A lot of parents don’t have the money to go to those water parks. This is a family-oriented city. I’d hate to see it go down.”
Once inside, two surprises await. Liberty Pool still has a high dive! Children line up and catch some nerve, an age-old pool tradition. And Liberty boasts the city’s only remaining wading pool. The pool is packed.
7:05 p.m. Race to the South Hill, to Comstock Pool, for a short lap. It’s even more jammed than Liberty. KHQ journalists are here, because this very night, in another location, the Aquatics Citizens Advisory Committee is holding a public hearing about the future of swimming in Spokane. (The next day, I learn that just four citizens showed up.)
Spokane’s aquatics recreation program must change to survive. The committee will hold two more hearings next week. Maybe more citizens will get involved in shaping the future of swimming here when they realize a new plan is not set in concrete – yet.
7:30 p.m. Make record time driving across town to Cannon pool on Spokane’s North Side. I do a victory lap. No matter what happens next, I’ve said goodbye to these pools of my childhood by swimming in them one last time.
Someday, when I’m in my 80s, I’ll tell the story of this day to the younger ones. Just as I now marvel that there was a pool at Natatorium Park and a train to the lakes, they will marvel that we once had six pools in Spokane, where children swam free.