Pool of my 20s, 30s, and most of my 40s, while visiting Butch and Sue at home. The home front. Mom and Dad's Pond of Salvation. My summer bathtub, post-run sanctuary, and evening cool-down oasis.
Our ball park, adventure land, our booze-space, and humidity relief station.
You were the hum that helped me sleep each night, and the first thing I looked out to each morning.
The shed outlived you, the boys will miss you, and I know my parents are shedding a tear. All those laps. All those books read. All those rafts, including the spiral one that kept us entertained for hours, and the Olympic one that kept you about five feet out of the water.
They invested in keeping you alive, and even then you had a mind of your own. You'd didn't want to hold, even as frogs and ducks begged you to stay. "Please," I rationed with my mom. "Can't you wait until August for when I have time to visit?" But I was told she wasn't even opened last year.
That was our little-league field before she was put in, and the sanctuary for Cynderballz and Maureen when they both were unemployed and had a summer to get tan. It was the lake for Smoker who would swim and swim and swim, owning the tennis balls and the ladder out, loving the chlorine, exercise, and refreshing cold. Do you remember when Cynde's entire bridal party splashed in you, tuxes, dresses, and all?
How many times did we have to climb out to get the volleyball that was knocked a little too high?
I read every Harry Potter book floating in your blue, during summers when I'd return from Kentucky. You were the glitter behind the barbecues and out-back evening dinners....the relief station of neighbors who'd ask, "Can we come and cool off? This is miserable outside right now."
And all the 90s music blared from our shitty-ass boom boxes.
Good-bye ol' friend. You brought as much happiness as Loch Lebanon.
You were life, and I thank you for that.
Love, love, love...
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