LIFE LESSONS
Joys to Be Had Virginia Hughes As children we weren’t concerned about our lack of resources, transportation or parental supervision. Boundless energy, long summer days that stretched into September and the company of brothers and sisters set us in perpetual motion to make something, play something or go somewhere outside. One day, the four of us who made up the younger half of the family—me at ten, the twins at seven, and my youngest sister at five—were on a mission to get to Matter Park. In the park reigned the aging gem of the summer stage, the old town pool herself waiting with her beautiful blue crumbling sides, deep drowning waters and fed up teenaged lifeguards. It cost 35 cents each to enter and the dime and quarter loomed large when multiplied by four. We needed a total of one dollar and forty cents to get into the pool, and we were determined to gain entrance. First, the scouring of the house began. We shook down the easy chair and couch cushions for coins. Dad’s Tootsie Roll bank with its tempting weight of quarters was offlimits, and we respected that order. He somehow knew how much was in it, and none of us wanted to end up as suspects in his fatherly sponsored line up of criminals who looked a lot like us. However, any stray coins that rolled under his desk or fell on his office chair were fair game since we didn’t ask, and he never said not to take those. The fact that Dad leaked change from his pockets speaks to a generous man who wanted the arrows in his quiver to work at least a little for things and expect no easy handouts. We kept quiet the dangerous details of how we fully funded our adventures. We never spoke about our forays into the sketchy woods or forbidden storm drain, where a late-night group may have left scads of bottles by smoldering campfires.
than recreation. Our brother donned cutoff church pants and a T-shirt, still not cool but looking more normal than we girls. We raided the towels and were on our way by high noon, barefoot or snapping on our flip flops, down tree-shaded Lincoln Street, to sunbaked Washington Street, alongside the Mississinewa River, across the Highland Bridge and up the long Matter Park Lane to our destination. My siblings recall we were shoeless and fearless, but mostly unattended by grown-ups. We were on our own in a world that our adults constantly warned was evil, unsafe, violent, in turmoil and ending. Yet there were paths to walk, pools to swim in and joys to be had. The pool smell assaulted the weary travelers standing in line to hand over their quarters and dimes. The puddling dressing rooms were next. And then the dreaded communal chemical sluice trench which smelled terrible and looked even worse. A wade through the trench was required to exit the dressing rooms. We never waded but jumped like Olympians with a shudder and groan lest a toe skim the top of the festering froth. At the pool we dared each other to try the high dive and the high slide at least once. The water was so deep on the high diving side, a swimming test had to be passed before diving. There should have been a required course in how to avert climbers overcome with fear who clambered down, knocking through the line of kids snaking up the slippery stairs. The upward climb built a shaking terror and the jump into the pool, a thunderous, regretful belly smack. Next came the high slide, a narrow, rickety thin metal tray with nonexistent side edges. Sit squarely in the center of this grill heated by the sun or fly right off the side. These were the glory days of playground construction rarely regulated for height, speed or safety.
We walked through back alleys and up and down crisscrossing railroad tracks looking for empty drink bottles to return to the corner grocery store. Indiana had not passed the ten-cent-abottle return like Michigan, but store owners paid a little on returns and every cent counted. It took hours until we finally arrived at our total of one dollar and forty cents.
Most of our time was spent in the shallow end of the pool on the lookout for “Jaws,” a palpable mental terror. We weren’t allowed to watch the movie, and shark bites at the local land-locked pool were zero, but that mattered not. A great white shark, big as a boat may be lurking if your sibling screamed “Jaws!” Swim quickly to the edge and jump out of the water just in time.
After a quick baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread washed down with grape Kool-Aid, we’d slipped into our modest swimsuits and layered our play clothes over them. Non- breathable polyester culottes and buttoned blouses designed by Mom adorned us girls and had us looking more ready for church
Our favorite game was retrieving our trusty diving rock, a small chunk of blue concrete extracted from the crumbling pool’s side. We used the same rock carefully tucking it back into place when we finished. It was always there waiting for us. What bliss we
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