Cool, Clean Water

It's so hot and muggy, all I can think about is water. I don't want to think about sickness, riots or global warming. I would love to submerge myself in a cool, clean body of water and float for a few hours, or days. 

When I was a child, I was deathly afraid of the water. We lived a half mile from Sun Valley Beach in Powder Springs, which was really an overgrown pond that somebody had concreted in years before. I played in the shallow end, but shrieked at anyone who tried to make me get deeper. My Daddy tried and tried to get me to learn to swim but I was terrified. One very hot summer, when some of our Yankee family was visiting and there was no air conditioning, our dear uncle bought us a 3-foot pool and installed it in the backyard. I remembering him sweating bullets while he worked on it. We thought we'd died and gone to heaven. My sister and I basically lived in it for the rest of that summer and several more after that. Daddy eventually bought us a fancy 4-foot pool and attached it to the deck right outside the house, so we could jump in without getting grass all over our feet and in the pool. Somewhere in there, I learned to swim and I learned to love the water.

When I was twelve years old, I started working at Sun Valley, teaching swimming lessons. Eventually I got my Senior Lifesaving and became a lifeguard. I lived for that 15-minute break each hour, where I could swim to my heart's content. I recall crazy near-drownings: A set of twins that were drowning right by their Mama in three feet of water. That was easy -- I just picked them both up. Their Mama acted mad at me. I guess she thought I was overreacting, or maybe she was just embarrassed. I found that to be a common reaction, when I rescued a young 'un when their parents were close by. It happened several times in my years as a lifeguard. The weirdest rescue was when some highly intelligent teenager tied one of the Tarzan ropes around his leg and then attempted to reach the next rope, but failed. That left him hanging plumb upside down, with his head under the water. Actually, before I could get to him, two girls pushed him up far enough and he was able to get loose. He had a nasty whelp on his leg and a really bad attitude when he walked by my chair. Pride goeth before the fall.

The most epic rescue happened one afternoon when I wasn't on duty but was picking up my check. I was at the concession stand when I heard a commotion at the water. The owner was running pell-mell across the sand, leapt into the water, swam like mad and then dove down into the deep. He surfaced, dragging some poor fellow. He got him up on the sand, then gave him mouth-to-mouth. Before the ambulance arrived, he had revived the guy and everybody was cheering and clapping. As the ambulance left and he turned to walk back, he looked up and saw our head lifeguard sitting on his stand, rubbing lotion on his feet. The lifeguard had not seen any of it, so preoccupied with those toes was he. The owner yanked him out of his chair and we never saw him again. Rumor has it he's buried out back somewhere.

A few years ago, they shut Sun Valley down like a Ghost Town. Weeds grew up, the slides rusted and you could barely see the sand. I read today that they've sold it and are going to put 56 single-family homes there. I think I'll ride by and see it one last time. It was a sweet, sentimental part of my childhood that I'll never forget.