About that time
I am sitting on the front porch with my sidekick. Yep, we watch cars go by down at the bottom of the hill. My sidekick likes to clap at them as they drive by. Now he is even roaming the whole front porch. Man, when they become toddlers, there is only one speed and that is full go. Another car goes by, and he claps as I think about something special this time of year.
Yep, it is the time of year that the swimming pools are about to open. We have one in our backyard, and within ten days, we will have our toes in the nice clear water. I can’t wait to see my Number #1, the Granddaughter, and my Sidekick, the Grandson in it. They will have a blast.
When we were stationed in Germany, I remember when my kids were younger. School only goes to about one over there. After school, my kids and the neighbor kids would walk down the Main River and cross the Old Bridge. There is an island in the middle of Kitzingen, the town where we lived. On that island was the German public pool. Now when Germans have a public pool, they go all out. They had a fancy slide with a couple of loops and its own large pool to catch the kids sliding. They had a separate Olympic size pool with a 10-meter diving board and numerous diving boards. Then they had a kiddie pool as well. The place was called the Schwimmbad.
Our kids would scurry over there with some Euros in their pocket and have a blast. They would either order Ice Cream (Eis) while there or German French Fries (pommes), which there is no comparison in the US to them. My wife and I would laugh because our kids would climb the giant slide, and once they got to the top, they would pull their swimming trunks down so when they slid down the slide so they could go faster. Every kid did that, but who would have ever thought of that. Oh, the life of being young. In America, someone would have called social services about that.
We are blessed with so many memories of being around swimming pools, and our kids have been lucky to be around them. So, I say, bring it on to the season of swimming. Let’s dip those toes in the water and enjoy the sun’s warmth and the festivities that come with swimming. Embrace all the water shenanigans, from dunking a friend to holding your breath the longest, to jumping in the deep end, to the cookouts, music, and various other entertainment around the pool. I think it is about time to get in the water.
This is my Friday’s Thought to Ponder for the Weekend.
The Vet
