Magic Land

My parents moved from Aruba to Westchester County New York in the early 1960s with their three children (me being the youngest, but not for long) and bought a house that came with a stone inground children’s pool, apparently put in the backyard at the same time the house was built in the 1920s.

The pool wasn’t the draw for my parents. My mom and dad were more interested in the number of bedrooms and the short walk to school, town, and train. They also loved the idea of living on a street packed with other kids, and ours was loaded. If my four-year-old self was in charge at the time I would have signed the buyer’s contract before even going inside the house. The pool was magic land.

My little sister Kir (after being born then growing into a three-year-old) and I got the most out of the pool. Our older siblings, who were in their teens, thought it was super uncool for them to get caught “swimming” in a 9 foot wide by 2 1/2 half foot deep  “kiddie” pool. Fine by us, we could have our pals, our Brownie troops, and the neighborhood dogs over for a pop in whenever we wanted. We couldn’t get enough of flinging our Ken and Barbie dolls into what we thought looked liked a miniature ocean with its Caribbean blue painted bottom and one foot up the walls.  I had come from Aruba after all.  It reminded me of home.

Left is blondie Kir. I am on the right. My bathing suit matches my Barbies.

Sometimes we would play “Whirlpool” which entailed marching around in a circle at top speed until the whirling water sucked everything near it into the center, including the dolls. Or “Lost at Sea” when Kir, me, and one other little person would load into the blue plastic boat we made our dad buy (it took up the whole pool measuring eight feet long) and screamed, “mayday mayday we are lost at sea”.

We belonged to a golf club that had a pond not far from the club pool and snack bar.  Kir and I  got the idea one summer to bring jars in our little L.L. Bean tote bags when we went to the club for a swim (our backyard pool was better FYI.  So what if you couldn’t swim laps). When mom was chatting with one of her nine-holer chums,  we snuck out to the pond and filled our jars with tadpoles. When we got home we flung them into our pool. They eventually became frogs and part of the “Whirlpool” game. Later that year a couple of rotund bullfrogs could be heard croaking in mom’s plants.

Ariel view. If the girl on the far right is reading this please identify yourself. I would love to hear your memories!

That’s all I remember about our little pool.  Kir and I grew up, lost interest, and moved on to Olympic-sized pools and tennis courts. Mom let the pool cover over with ivy. If no one was going to use it, no use in maintaining it. I never really thought about the pool again until COVID struck.