Black Kids at the Pool

 

“It’s gratifying to see so many Black kids in line for the pool!” S. nods at the tumbling, boisterous line of children in front of the Richmond Swim Center. On their way to Swim Camp.

            E. and I are sitting outside the facility, just downwind from the line of kids, chatting about how her daughter came down with COVID after going to a concert in San Francisco. Yes, COVID is still with us even after 5 years. S. has stopped to chat, too. She’s already told a story in the locker room about how she refrained from swearing at her husband that morning when he refused to take her to the gym. “I was so proud of myself when he went back on his promise! I didn’t use one single swear word. I just walked outta there and came to the pool!”

            Now, standing in front of us, her round black body pausing for a moment, her ample bosom straining at the Kamala Harris T-shirt, her comment about the black kids in line further ignites her narrative skills.

            “You know, black kids don’t grow up swimming. It started during Segregation. When Black folk weren’t even allowed in public pools.” E. and I nod. “And then,” she continues, “it gets passed on down generations as fear. First fear of the harms from segregation. Then fear of the water. My mama. She was afraid of the water. And she passed down this fear to me. Now, I swim.” She laughs loudly, shaking her head. “Well, I don’t really swim, but I look like I swim. I was thinking of taking swim lessons.”

            “They do give swim lessons here on Saturday mornings,” I interject.

            “They do? Well, that’s good to know. Maybe I’ll sign up. I’m not afraid of the water like my mama, but I never learned to swim because she was. And, after all these back surgeries. I’m not having any more. Thank you very much! The doctors said for me to swim. That this would be the best therapy for my back.”

            “It is!” E. and I both sing out.

We all laugh. “It’s true,” S. continues.

“If only we could be in the water all the time!” I exclaim.

“Now, wouldn’t that be something?” S. muses. “I want a big water bubble surrounding me so when I’m walking around, I’m in the pool. 24/7!”

Didn’t I write about this idea before? A pool bubble? I think so. But back to the black kids standing in line today. The changes that have happened for them in order for them to be at the pool, at swim camp. I never had thought of segregation as being responsible for so few black swimmers. Of course, I’ve noticed that most swimmers are white. At this pool, there are a lot of old white ladies. But only a few old black ladies. And a couple young black swimmers: one is the underwater swimmer I was next to today. She wears long blue and green fins, dives deep under water, and blasts across the length of the pool, holding her breath until she gets to the other end. Amazing! So, obviously, there are a few black swimmers, but only a few.

            Now I know why. Racism and bigotry's long arms of oppression. And, still it goes on today. 

         “I gotta git home now and fix my husband lunch!” S. proclaims.

            “Haven’t you already done enough for him today by now swearing?” E. asks.

            We all laugh.

            “I think you deserve Wife of the Year!” I say.

            “Hah! You’re right. I do!”

            “And this coming from two single women without husbands,” E. says.

            “Maybe we’re the best judges of who is the Wife of the Year,” I offer, but not really knowing why this would be.

            They laugh at me in any case.

            The kids are hustled into the facility now.  Their noisy shouts and shoves gone inside, to the pool.

I am glad for the sudden quiet, but at the same time, I’m glad for their opportunity to swim. It’s the best thing in the world. For white kids. Black kids. Asian Kids. Latinx kids. All kids!

Swim swim swim swim!

           

 

 

Snake Stories

 

Brian Kristal of Reptile Wonders, photo by Doug Bishop

"Yesterday, we had snakes at the library,” Conditioner Woman says as she bustles around her stuff strewn all over the locker room bench. We’d both just gotten out of the pool here at Kennedy High and then the shower. She hadn’t asked me for conditioner today, but I’d kept it under wraps, taking it into the toilet with me to prevent theft.

            She’d asked me about teaching. If it was busy. I’d told her not yet. It’s just the first week. She then launched into her Snake Story.

            “Did the snakes read from the snake books?” I asked, laughing.

            She didn’t glance up at me but shook her head. “No, but that’s a funny idea. What happened was that this Snake Expert came into the library yesterday and brought with him four snakes that he told a bit about to the kids. One was a poisonous snake. One was harmless. One was very large. Etc.”

            I thought about how I had always liked snakes. And then remembered the time in Santa Cruz when Owen Hill and I lived across the street from the Fruit Factory and our cat, Gus, had caught a snake. We’d come home from somewhere and seen him in the driveway. Tossing something up into the air. The something writhing about and then falling. Then the cat picking it up and tossing it up again. When we’d gotten closer, we saw that it was a little green and yellow snake. “Looks like just a gardner snake,” Owen had commented.

            “Is it gardner or garter?” I’d asked.

            “Gardner, I think you know what a garter is.”

            I lifted my pants leg up, displaying a tan shapely calf, laughing.

            But what to do with the poor snake that the cat was playing with? Was it even still alive?

            “GUS!!!” I hollered, “STOP it!”

            He ignored me as only a cat can. I moved a little closer to see if I could tell if the snake were alive still or not. But part of me was a little creeped out. Snakes. They are inherently creepy, right? A Christian Cultural sinister devil.

            Owen shook his head as the cat stopped and started chewing on the snake, now lying lifeless on the driveway. “I think we’re too late.”

            “Should we take it away from him?” I asked. “I mean, will eating it make him sick?”

            “Nah, it’s protein. Let him have his dinner.”

            I had been dubious but then again, I didn’t want to pick up a dead snake either, so I’d followed Owen into the apartment to start our own dinner, snake free.

            Today, then, when Conditioner Woman mentioned the snakes and how much the kids liked them, I thought about how, yeah, this makes sense. Kids like creepy stuff.

            “The snake guy had a few of the kids volunteer to hold the snakes. And one kid, he had him close his eyes, and then he placed a huge, beautiful lizard in the kid’s arms.”

            I wanted to ask what the kid’s reaction was, but she had turned to announce the Snake Story to the next woman waiting in the wings: “Yesterday, we had snakes at the library.”
            “Snakes?”

            “Yes, snakes….”

            I dug around in my swim bag for my brush to tackle the tangles before it was time to leave. “Just to let you ladies know, KIDS ARE COMING INTO THE LOCKER ROOM SOON!” one of the lifeguards anounnced, stomping across the cement floor to check the showers for dead bodies.

            Or snakes?

            I once saw a snake coming out my shower, but hell, that’s another story.

Finishing the detanglining procedure, I threw my brush back in my bag and gathered up all my stuff to throw in too.

            “I bet the kids loved the snakes….” echoed in the room.

            Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I hurried out of the locker room. Outside the facility kids were swarming for summer pool camp.

            I thought about snakes at the pool. How much fun that would be. Throwing them in the water and letting them chase all the kids. The fear. The screaming. The hilarity.

            Maybe next summer.

            Snakes at the Pool.

            Now that would be a story!