It was a one of a kind...

Well this time of the year used to find me at one place. The DeIphos Public Swimming Pool. I spent so many hours there I couldn't even begin to keep track. I learned to swim there, went off my first diving board there, and almost watched a kid drown there. Unique in it's shape, completely round. It is the only swimming pool I have ever seen like it. I have know idea how old it is or who designed it but I loved it. Seeing pictures of it brings back some fond memories....

I'll never forget that overwhelming smell of chlorine, the metal baskets to put our clothes in and the shelves they sat on while we could care less if they were there or not. I remember we had to step into some kind of small cement enclosure was filled with some mucky looking water that was suppose to kill any germs on our feet. I was prone to step around it for fear of really getting something on my feet.

Now this I never understood. Me and the rest of the kids would do this over and over again. We would go up to the snack bar and get a candy bar. When we opened them for some strange reason they were always melted. Whoppers and Clark Bars seemed to go the fastest. It was probably because we didn't have a beach but instead a hot cement like beach area surrounding the pool. Hey....it was a beach to us.

About the kid the almost drown, I'm sure you're still wondering about that. Well, before I could swim I had a blow-up plastic sea horse that was in the shape of a doughnut with a horse's neck and head. I could hang on inside the doughnut hole and kick myself around. Well me and some other kids were walking around near the deep end of the pool and I was carrying my blow up horse and the wind blew it out of my hands into the deep section of the pool. All of us kids stopped. I wasn't sure what to do next and neither were they. Next thing we knew a little kid came up and said to me "Hey kid, do you want me to go get that for you"? I was kinda dumbfounded because he was so much smaller than any of us. But before I knew it I said "Yes". And, into the water he went, just like he knew what he knew what he was doing. Then things got weird. He quit moving around so much and he didn't return to the surface. He was kinda just floating about 3 to 4 feet from the surface, his eyes were open but had a blank stare to them. His skin started to change colors to a motley purple bluish to an off white. Something in my gut was screaming at me that there was something terribly wrong here but about that time one of the boys next to me said " Look at that kid swim, wow he is really good". I short circuited at this point because I trusted the boy who made the statement but my gut feeling was overwhelming. About this time a teenage girl had dived into the pool and came face to face with the little boy who was obviously drowning. She grabbed him and hauled him out of the pool yelling at the life guards at the same time. All hell broke loose. It took me and the other kids awhile to figure out that the kid had been drowning this whole time. I was at best 4 to 5 years old and I had no idea about drowning or what a drowning victim looked like and neither did the other kids. Shortly an ambulance arrived and hauled him off. To this day I don't know his name or if he lived or died. I tried to get a hold of the Delphos Public Library but they said they didn't have the staff to look for the article. I hope he made it.

I love that pool....

Footnote: I do not remember where I aquired the picture of the Delphos Public Swimming Pool from so if you recognize the photo please contact me so I can properly document the photo credit and request permission of the owner for use. Thank you.