The Maze

After graduation, summer in full swing, a mere month before I was to be off to my first year of college, I was visiting the Schumacher Pool, hanging out with friends on their breaks.

My old boss at the pool was miffed whenever she laid eyes on me. "What are you doing here?" she say. "I thought you were helping your father." She was alluding to one of the reasons I gave for giving notice at the Sportsplex Pool at the start of the summer. We were in the midst of renos that summer, and I had made myself free to help. Or so I said. I have to say that my mother was none to pleased with my decision, either. I knew my quitting would piss them both off, and I was rather nervous when I did; but I just didn't want to work at the pool for a pittance anymore. I can understand why my old boss was angry. I left her in a lurch, so to speak. She'd probably already scheduled my shifts for the season, and she was likely left shorthanded by my declaration. No matter. That was her problem, not mine. Anyone can up and quite a job that no longer fills their needs, just like anyone can be fired at a moment's notice, for that matter.

As to my helping my father: I did. Just not every day. He did not have the summer off. So, home renos happened on the weekends, when they did; which was not every weekend, or everyday on said weekends, either. So I had a fair bit of time on my hands. Mainly on weekdays. Weekends, too, actually. My father had a tendency to slip away with friends when there was work to be done; enough on that for now.

But I digress. I was visiting friends at the Schumacher Pool. Garry Martin and Sue Spencer were excited. It was plain they'd discovered something that was too good not to share. They took me by the arms and said, “You gotta see this,” they said. They led me into the basement, down into the underside of the pool basement. There were tunnels and passageways and crawlspaces throughout.

What was it exactly? It was the utility tunnels beneath and alongside the pool. There were more than expected, with nooks and crawlspaces and hides from which one could see and not be seen. It roused the imagination. Thoughts of Dungeons and Dragons sprung to our minds. Assignations and sex might ought to have, but such things didn't.

“Someone could hide down here and no one would ever know.” That, of course, prompted a bout of hide and seek. Of course it did. What else might come to mind when presented with such a thing. You’d think we were too old for that sort of behaviour? You would think so; but, obviously not.

Were we being childish? Probably. We were set to head off to school soon, "post-secondary school," or I was, anyway. Garry and Susan still had a year’s reprieve, to be "young," and without much in the way of having to face a looming future, whatever that might be.

The full weight of growing up was poised to drop on our shoulders in years to come. With that in mind, we thought keep a hold on childish fun as long as one could.