Growing up in Philly in the early 80’s, I knew two families who had a pool. One was a church elder and his family. He was one of the Three Kings in our Christmas pageant and sang with an amount of vibrato that reduced small children (or at least me) to hysteria. Thankfully, a church summer potluck at their house did not include pageantry, but rather jello and swimming. The other family owned a very successful auto repair company and had three kids at my school. If you had one of them in your grade you’d hit the jackpot. Your class was invited to play in the company game room by winter, and have fabulous pool parties by summer in their expansive back yard complete with a tiki hut. If you really were on a roll you could request to use the indoor bathroom (not the one in their pool house) that had golden toilet and faucet fixtures.
Eventually my parents moved south and had pools, but that made sense. Living in the south is like living in a sauna that’s been dumped into a hot tub for most of the year – – hot and humid. But pools in Boston? The tundra south of the tundra? Why?
Our former house in Boxford had a perfect spot for a pool and, sure, it did get cooking hot on some days.
“Like four days.” I’d snap if our girls asked about pools. “It’s summer here in Boston for perhaps one full week and then it’s the McMurdo Station forever with maybe an hour of color for Fall.”
I could tell they thought I was exaggerating just a little bit, and yet my no-pool paradigm won the day and years. And then we moved up the road last winter, for a variety of reasons none of which included the fact that, “this house has a pool!?” I stared at it as if it was an alien life form. “What will we do with it?”
Our two girls sighed.
Weeks later we became pool owners. And we also became mechanical pool room owners with lots of things – – pipes, nozzles and outlets with things that plugged into them.
“Soooo, I’m seeing both water and electricity mediums here.” I remarked to the pool technician who came in late April to open it all up. “They shouldn’t mix, right?”
“Oh it’s fine, it’s made to do this, you know.”
I didn’t know. I’ll refer you to the many, MANY, fish we’ve killed over the years. What was a pool if not a giant fish tank for people?
He saw my doubt, and reassured me. “The one thing you really need to do is to clean the skimmers so that the pipes don’t clog.”
We worked out what and where the skimmers were. It wasn’t obvious since our skimmer lids are made of concrete – – not light and airy like the word ‘skim’ implies, a nomenclature issue I’ll let you chew on. Regardless, I felt ready to tackle them, and to actually skim (a more correct use of the word) the water with the big net and pole. Straight forward and easy.
The first day that I checked the skimmers there were two dead frogs floating in them.
I’ll spare you the details of how I de-frogged them given the net-and-pole was too wide, except to say the ways in which a Red Solo Cup comes in handy are endless and frankly rather remarkable.
The second day there was one, barely living, frog and yet another dead one.
“What on earth!?” I said to the technician when he came by to check on things. “Has the second plague of the Exodus come to Boxford!?”
“No, frogs are normal, though you may want to consider getting a frog ladder, it also helps with the baby bunnies, chippies, occasional baby groundhog and, of course, snakes.”
Of course. Except, this is a leisure pool, not a petting zoo! Also I’m not Jack Hannah. I’m not the Frog Whisper!!
“A frog ladder?” I asked, making sure I heard him right.
But I googled it, and it’s a thing. One that my friends and family with pools already knew about. The floodgates of baby bunny and chippy near death experiences poured in, and I realized owning a pool came with a small-animal rescue side job.
And the thing is, if the frog ladder works, you’ll never know what you saved. By definition the small, skimmer-sized, creature will climb out on this ‘ladder’ (let’s not kid ourselves, it’s an inflatable tube that dangles in the water) and go on their merry, wet but alive, way with nary a thank you note in return.
And I’m fine with that. Just like I’m fine with owning a pool. In fact, I’m typing this poolside in mid-May with months (ahem, ok fine not four days) of summer ahead. Possibly I’m even loving it, frogs and all.
But I’m drawing the line at golden toilet fixtures.