Pool_1

entry. The main swimming area was on the far side, the deck side, of the change house. A large 'filter room' was adjacent the girls changing area. Mechanical hisses and clunks issued from the filter room from time to time. A prominent smell of chlorine hung in the air. Immediately on entry to the deck from the changing areas, was the deep end, at a depth of ten feet. The hard stone mountain had defied the construction of this place. Putting the deep end where the shallow end ought to be was a last minute work around the blasting that they feared might bring down the projects - or so they said. This arrangement also happened to situate the guard room, with its large picture window overlooking the water - at the deep end - where the action was. And there was plenty of that. Virtually none of the kids, mostly kids from the projects, could swim at all. In its early days, the main event of the day was watching every single kid who left the change house charge directly into ten feet of water, straight to the bottom. An quickly constructed pipe rail obstacle with depth warnings was placed to divert the flow of lemmings to the depths. Although swimming was unknown to these youngsters, hurdling was like breathing. Instead of charging into the deep end, they now hurdled the pipe obstacle before sinking like stones. Bloop. The pipe barrier got progressively and uselessly embellished to no avail. Things went this way until diving boards were added. These gave visual evidence to deepness. The diving boards spoke visually, "It is deep here". Nobody here read signs. So now drowners, as those having to be pulled out were called, were down to a mere twenty or thirty a day, for the entire facility. A huge improvement of which everybody was proud.