Wednesday, September 25, 2019



Pooling our ignorance

October 2005

Back in the mists of time, when life was simple and I was still coping, Jan and I decided to add a pool to our backyard. The urge arose from the fact that her sister had one, our family always enjoyed using it when we visited, and we too, had a backyard. The logic was unassailable.

For once it was fairly sound, as well. The cost was just about the same as a boat similar to what many of our friends were buying for family recreation on the few small lakes in the area (Minnesota we ain’t).  So while a pool seems dangerously pretentious, we had talking points in place. Unlike boats, pools can’t be hidden in sheds and can be a constant reminder of our ever-so-slightly conspicuous consumption habits.

Maybe it will fade with increasing numbers of private pools, but for many people my age and older, having swimming pool was like ordering champagne – slightly beyond appropriate. Spend that same amount on a Harley however, and nobody bats an eye.

Actually, the pool turned out to be probably a better deal. Nobody ever went to a pool show and traded for a 2-foot longer one, for example. And given my history with seldom used gas engines, long hot afternoons floating adrift with a dead motor was not just possible but likely. 

Not that pools are foolproof, mind you. After a few years of alternately cloudy and green-tinged water, we were able to master to art of pool maintenance by changing the master. As luck would have it, just when I had finally flogged those gallons of dihydrogen oxide into submission, Jan became the Princess of Chlorine.  Suddenly the water became and stayed crystal clear. 

This too, is probably a good thing.  I have seen on TV what can happen had we been forced to call in a “pool boy”. If housewives can get that desperate, what about farmwives? Maybe it’s a side effect of algaecide or something. At any rate, the possibility should be more clearly spelled out on the label!

In fairness to my history as “pool fool”, Jan uses techniques that are difficult for me to accept. For example, she follows instructions – to the letter! What’s up with that?

Worse yet, she does things when you’re supposed to. This violates the solid foundation of farm maintenance: if it’s working, LEAVE IT ALONE. Fussing around with a crystal clear pool seems to be asking for trouble. 

Pools change the ecology of a backyard as well. One bizarre and mildly disgusting discovery was that, as nearly as we can tell, our pool from the air appears to be a large toilet for some bird species. In fact, during nesting season, blackbirds fly bombing raids to clean out their nests. Luckily an automatic pool sweep adequately handled the cleanup chore, but sheesh! Suddenly the smell of chlorine doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Meanwhile toads flock from miles to frolic at nights in our pool or weirdly pile in at the first sound of thunder. Jan (ever the gardener) is too kindhearted to allow me to kill them, but turns the other way as I launch the unsuspecting amphibians several dozen yards in graceful arcs with a long-handled net. Actually I suspect this may be the reason they keep coming back. Wheeeee!

Even more spectacular are the aerial exploits of barn swallows. They circle and swoop down to get a, um, swallow of water. Either that or they are practicing for cat-strafing.

Likewise, dogs will walk right by cool fresh water in a dog bowl to stretch over the edge and lap up water. Being outside dogs, maybe this is the closest they can get to drinking out of a toilet. During dry weather deer, raccoons, and something that eats baseball gloves also come by to guzzle. Luckily, I sleep through it.

Having a pool in the country is a not just an unspeakable extravagance. It is temptation for instant gratification without thought of the moral consequences. Conjuring a random imaginary example, you have just finished mowing a long inside fencerow next to a cornfield in late July during a heat wave. You stumble to the house covered with insect parts and leaf cuts and are enticed by gallons of cool clear water promising your relief. Who wouldn’t shed the itchy, sodden clothes and plunge in?

Answer: anybody who noticed that the United Methodist Women were meeting in the living room.  

Still being miles from anywhere with a traffic count of about 3 (per month) does not reinforce modesty. At best, we have gotten better at scattering towels close to the edge now. Besides, unless I’m mistaken the UPS truck didn’t use to glide into our drive so silently before. And since when does the meter reader need to do a 360 around the house to find the meter? Hmm, maybe it’s actually just a shrubbery problem.

Call me a hedonist, but nature didn’t intend water to be enjoyed just in small bottles.