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.

Bits and Pieces, and Such

Oddly, I have a lot of gaps in my memory of attending St. Theresa. I have a fair number of gaps in my memory of attending Pinecrest, too. Grades 1 to 2 are not quite as vivid as 4 through 6, when my class had solidified, somewhat.

I remember surprisingly few teachers. I remember a woman in ruffled shirts and salt and pepper hair teaching Grade 2 (don’t quote me on that, she may have been Grade 3), then Mrs. Gage (I do not remember her maiden name—she had that the first semester, then returned married after Christmas...unless I’m confusing two separate school years) for Grade 4, Mr. Litchfield for Grade 5 (our Principal took over the class after the nameless teacher we began with left for maternity leave quite early in the school year), and finally, the beloved Mr. Reade for Grade 6. I remember Mr. Battachio subbing in for gym class, his change jingling in his pockets. I remember mistakenly calling Mrs. Gage mom, once; being seated beside Alison Tilly for art class in Grade 6; Mr. Reade reading a chapter of a novel about a winter plane crash to us each day. My memory is replete with playground recollections: lots of soccer and touch football, then baseball and basketball. I remember being bused to the Schumacher Pool for swim classes, the water so cold that Tony Syball (sp) used to shiver uncontrollably. There were occasional testosterone clashes with Larry MacDowell in the playground, and sometimes with Donald Rhodes. I remember Alison Tilly and Tony Syball joining our class sometime around Grade 4 (I’m sure there are many who can tell me exactly when). There was Kathy Kreiner mania after her gold medal win at the ‘76 Olympics, and track and field try-outs.

But surprisingly few memories of Grades 7 and 8. I remember a snow day which turned out to be one of the best winter days ever, a solar eclipse when we had to sit in class with all the curtains drawn to protect us, a school Olympics where teams made up of people from different homerooms and grades were combined. I recall a socially awkward boy who was ridiculed by almost everyone. He was clueless, it seemed, unable to follow others’ lead to fit in. I first saw him up against the urinals, with his pants and underwear down around his ankles, all the boys in the washroom laughing at him. I felt so sorry for him, but what was to be done? He went from one social gaff to the next, never talking to others. I do recall how many people left to go to Ross Beattie in Grade 8, the socially awkward boy among them, the year parents had to pay extra for the privilege of having their children attend Catholic School.

I am cognizant of how many times I had to “start anew.” I began school in Cochrane, then began again after moving from Cochrane to Timmins (another beginning, when you think on it), then again when I was held back in Grade 2. I began again in Grade 7, when my parents transferred me from the public-school system to the separate. Losing many people mid-middle school was another surprise.

This trend of my starting over would continue in post-secondary, even in work, but those are stories for another day. Throughout my entire life I was always finding myself starting over. I shouldn’t complain. I may have lost many friends with each renewal, but I also met new people with each beginning, as well. It’s no wonder that my memory is a riot of mixed memories, somewhat loosely anchored.

The Schumacher Pool

Almost all of my swimming lessons took place at the Schumacher Lions Club Swimming Pool. I loved that old building, despite its faults. Built by the MacIntyre Mine, it was originally intended as an open-air pool, the metal frame building that rose above it was an afterthought. I will always remember the almost deafening drumming on the roof whenever there was a storm. And I seem to recall our having to clear the pool whenever there was lightning. Whistle blows echoed off those corrugated metal walls, sounding shriller, by far.

It was poured concrete (rumour had it that after all the mining underfoot, 10,000 gallons poured through the cracks in the floor every day; I doubt that, but we all said it and we were all convinced of the fact then), the change rooms, showers and offices cinderblock shells. There were always pools of water scattered about the floor where there was poor drainage, and we all hated the feel of them, believing them to not only be slimy to the touch (they were), but toxic. They smelled of must and mildew so why wouldn’t they not be toxic to the touch. It afforded neither heat nor air conditioning, and was never intended to operate year-round. And it didn’t, so all swimming lessons then were held only in the summer. It goes without saying, the Schumacher Pool was always humid, always a little musty.

Karen and I used to ride our bikes to it for public swims when the weather was good, lock them up to the rows of bike racks out front. Sometimes we went with neighbours, mostly by ourselves. We always knew we’d meet up with kids we knew, we and they having spent years of lessons there. And that was why we swam there, despite Gilles Lake being half the distance from our house. Then again, you couldn’t swim in Gilles in August unless you brought an extra suit or a change of clothes with you or else you'd get swimmers’ itch, cercarial dermatitis, inflicting hive-like welts wherever the damp cloth rested on your skin (there were nasty little parasites in the water back then, at least until the city dredged the lake). I didn’t want to get swimmer’s itch. Not ever. Every welt raised was automatically assumed to be another bout of hives. Panic inevitably arose from the sight of them.

Another reason to go to the pool: we never had to pay, free admission was the perk of taking lessons there. We’d show our lesson card and be waved within. We’d collect our change baskets, jam out street clothes into them, and pin our stainless-steel tag to our suit, then return the baskets to their racks for the duration. I can't say I ever lost anything from the baskets, and they never misplaced one, not ever; the kids working at the pool kept a keen eye on our stuff while we were having our fun.

We’d wait at the change room doors, piled up against each other from the door back into the showers waiting for the swim bell. Swim caps were the rule. We all had to wear them for the sake of the filters. And most fetching they were! Sleek speedos, loud floral frescos, a riot of colours that always clashed with the loudly coloured suits of the day. The bell always took forever to ring. Those lucky enough to be at the door would watch the seconds tick by on the clock. Loud, it rang like a fire bell klaxon.

The guards would yell at us every swim to slow down and walk. We would, we did, but in the most comical quick half-run shuffle.

Swimming Lessons

The Schumacher Pool before the walls went up.

My first swimming lessons were held at the Schumacher pool, the only pool we had in Timmins at the time. It had once been an open-air pool that had been covered years later with a metal shell, good enough for shelter from rain, but not good enough to insulate us from the dead of winter, so we only had lessons in the summer.

Judy Miller was always at the cash when we climbed the stairs at the entrance. I was scared of her at first, a big lady with fiery red hair and the temper to match, always a little shrill and cross (she was actually only raising her voice to be heard through the glass, but I didn’t know that, then), but as the years passed I grew to love her. We all did. She became our mother hen.

Anyway, back to the pool: It was a deep pool, with only a very small area beyond the buoy line where one could stand up, whatever one’s age. As only Novice was held in the shallow area, we were expected to be able to swim the width of the pool by the time we began Beginners, quite a leap of skill from Novice to Beginners. We had better be able to, as no one our age could touch the bottom anywhere where Beginners was taught. As you might expect, there was a lot of hanging off the water spout pipe along the edge. Swimming one width was not enough, though. We were also expected to swim at least two, as we were expected to return to where we began, after all. Back to where the class was held. And we were expected to repeat that, too, making the expected laps four and not two.

I was not a particularly strong swimmer then, not like the fish I was to become. So, those laps were exhausting.

Point in case: I was swimming widths, getting more tired with each in turn; then on the fourth, I got half way across and found that I could barely lift my arms above water. Then I couldn’t. I slipped below the surface, crawled up for air, and then slipped under further still the next time, then barely back up again to gasp for air. Not surprisingly, I was rather panicked.

There was hope on the horizon, so to speak. With each surfaced gasp for air, I first saw the instructor being flagged down by a fellow swimmer, then the instructor diving into the pool in my direction. It was a clean dive. A rapid dive. A dive I could never pull off, not then, anyways.

He’s coming, I thought. I’m saved. I’m not going to drown.

He reached me in only a few strokes. He took hold of me, lifted me to the surface, and then hauled me back to the edge. All in all, it was much the same sort of experience as when I was trapped in the inner tube at Rancourt.

I shook for some time after that. But I always shivered back then. The water was cold and I was a skinny kid with precious little thermal protection. But I was probably in shock, too. I was embarrassed, too. No one else had to be rescued, after all.

“What happened,” they asked.

“I just got tired,” I said. “I couldn’t make it across.” What else was there to say?

I wasn’t the only one panicked. My mother almost broke the glass of the observation deck when she saw me struggling to stay on top of the water and failing. She hammered it, yelling, “Hey!” repeatedly, trying in vain to get the instructor’s attention. She didn’t, though. Not on deck, anyways. She most assuredly got the attention of everyone on the observation deck, though.

Rest assured, I became a strong swimmer as the years passed, becoming a lifeguard and instructor myself.