I spent the afternoon with my granddaughter at the new water park in our town’s Blanchette Park. “Back in the day” Blanchette Park was where we spent most of our summer. There were ball diamonds for baseball and softball;  dances at the Memorial Hall, tennis courts where you could pretend to play tennis (or just use that as an excuse to see your boyfriend), and of course, the piece de resistance…the pool. It was a big pool by most municipal standards and even included a 10′ diving board.

My mom never learned how to swim so she made sure that we kids knew how. We took swimming lessons as Blanchette for several years and for me, it was a no-brainer. I took to the water like I belonged there. Even by the time I got to the police academy, I ran like I had two lead feet, but I swam like a fish.

I mentioned the pool had a 10′ diving board and I was definitely not a fan of it. One year during swim lessons, we were required to jump off it. It’s a memory I’ve never forgotten. Standing at the edge of the board with the swim instructor encouraging me to jump, telling me that it was not nearly as far down as it looked since my head was 5′ higher than my feet. That didn’t work. I was terrified. Just look forward at the clock on the building in front of you and walk off. Yeah, right. I managed to do it, holding my nose, but that was my one and only excursion to the top of this board.

Back then, when it was much safer, my mom let me ride my bike, alone, the two miles to the park where I’d lay out my towel, turn on my transistor radio, slather up with baby oil and bask in the sun for hours. I can never hear the song “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs without the memory of laying on my towel in the grass at the pool and listening to it playing on the loudspeaker.

The new water park at Blanchette is like nothing we could have ever imagined back when I was my granddaughter’s age. It has open flume and enclosed flume slides and one called a “drop slide”. Unfortunately, that slide was the one I chose, and as its name suggests, at the end of the slide, it drops you about 4′ into the water, and you are moving fast. Needless to say, this was not the best choice for my sacroiliac joints. There are height requirements for the slides, but no age limits. Maybe there should be. I certainly didn’t see any other “kids” my age up there.

There’s a large kiddie area,

and a swim area with lap lanes and diving boards but not the dreaded 10′ board (I don’t think any municipal pools have those any longer, lots of liability.)

It was a really warm day for the middle of June, over 90 °, but that’s the way I like my pool days. It was a lot of fun and I don’t spend a lot of time with just my granddaughter so that made it extra special. And we finished the day with chocolate shakes from Dairy Queen.