Hot Fun in the Summertime!

In fifth grade I met one of my best friends. She and her family moved from in the city to the suburbs. Not only was she in my grade, she and her family lived two streets away from me. I don't remember the first time we talked or the first time we decided to do something together. I do remember going to Hershey Park, playing tennis, riding bikes and having sleep overs.

The most fun I think we had were on the countless days we'd spend at the pool. Often our days at the pool would begin at 10:00 a.m. for either synchonized swimming practice or swim team. The water was always freezing no matter how hot and humid the preceeding day or night was. The pool was close enough to our houses so that we would either walk or ride our bikes there.

After the hour long swim practice we'd go back home for a few hours to do whatever tortureous projects our parents had for us that day. It was summer after all, did we really have to work??

But when 1:00 rolled around, and the pool opened for business, we were there. We had our towels, bathing suits were on, flip flops and our pool bags full of combs, mirrors, baby oil (because Lord knows we were not into preventing skin cancer, we wanted to get as much sun as possible), sun glasses, reading material, and of course money.

One of our favorite pasttimes at the pool was of course checking out guys. Older guys. We were maybe in high school possibly only Jr. High school at this point so we were so in love with the guys that were going to be seniors or maybe had already graduated. I was in love with one of the life guards Paul and another guy Mike. Mike's mom was from England and periodically he'd go there for a visit. I thought that was so cool. He was intercontinental. My friend however, was in love with the one and only Bob. We knew where he lived and even did a "walk by" once and a while. I even remember that his favorite song was "My Sharona." I'm not sure how we determined that, but it was a well known fact. I know we never dated any of these guys, not sure we even talked to them at any point.

Our second love at the pool was the food. Pizza, burgers, hot dogs, fries and of course the candy; Chick-o-sticks, Delfa rolls, Swedish Fish, Fun Dips, Pixie Sticks.

One of our biggest challenges as we got older, maybe juniors in high school was trying to pull off that we were actually 18. Because at 18, we could swim at adult swim AND use the folding chairs. Every once and a while before we turned 18, we got the guts up to grab a chair or to go in for adult swim. But we were so sure we were going to get told about it. Like somehow our ages were tattooed on our foreheads.

4:00 would roll around all too quickly and we would have to pack up our belongings. The two of us were working girls. We had paper routes. So, we'd drag ourselves home and deliver our papers, have dinner and do whatever else our parents wanted us to do. Then maybe, just maybe, we'd have the opportunity to sneak back down to the pool for the rest of the night.