I spent all my Virginia summer days at the pool. I went to swim team practice in the morning. I spent the rest of the day, until afternoon practice, goofing off at the country club. My friends and I spent our hours in between practices exploring little places we were not supposed to go. We knew every corner of the lifeguard building which was off limits to kids. We learned how to use the cooking facilities of the snack bar, crawled about the golf course, spent hours in the off limits women’s locker rooms. We struck up summer crushes, played card games and watched and admired the older kids. Then there were moments that caught us off guard like the day the boy fell off the high dive arms first onto the cement and the lifeguard on duty fainted getting towels to mop up the blood.
It was one of those summer days that I waited and watched the only TV I knew about at the club. The girl working the snack bar brought a TV to work so the she could watch the moon landing. I leaned on the counter in my bikini watching uncharacteristically jaw open and aware of a world larger than my own as the capsule opened and the astronauts stepped on the moon and my brother in Viet Nam waited to come home.
Jean McGavin
Bethlehem, CT
January 2010
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