WEEKENDER – Playing Pool

WEEKENDER

Wednesday-the actual column you can read in this weeks WEEKENDER. It’s in the paper before the ads for the Asian rub joints and the chicks with dicks.

Opened the pool yesterday.

Who would think four words could bring such pain and misery into your life? The Rising ranch came with a pool. It wasn’t why we made the choice but it didn’t hurt either. On those few summer days when the weather is right it is indeed a joy.
The rest of the time it is an obligation. A Chinese curse, when you save someone’s life and are then responsible for them.

Vacuum me, clean me, chlorinate me, skim me. It’s me, me, me with the pool.

I have help to close the pool. But in the spring I go it alone.

The pool cover protects the pool from leaves and such falling into it over the cold months. These end up in the pool anyway in the process of removing it.

The cover weighs four tons. This is, of course, only an estimate. Give or take several tons. There is a science, a methodology to removing the cover. The guy who closes the pool every year patiently explains it to me. You fold the ends to the middle and pull it off. When he does it it’s like a magician’s trick, the one where the tablecloth is removed and all the dishes stay in place. When I do it all the leaves get in the pool. Then the cover fills up with water which is heavier than guilt.

Trying to pull the water filled cover out of the pool by myself is like watching Sisyphus. I pull on one side, the other slides in the pool. I rush to that side and heave and the rest goes for a swim. Eventually I get the damn thing out and lie panting beside it.

The water is a disturbing shade of green. It is so cloudy that the Loch Ness monster could be in its depths. All the leaves from the cover are floating merrily on the surface.

The pump must be reassembled and started. This process takes hours of sweating, searching, trips back and forth to the house for more tools after I drop them into the murky depths of Lake Rising.

Finally the pump pumps.

Now the cleanup can begin.

It takes a day to do it which is why I am trying to type this without moving any part of my body. Because all parts of my body hurt.

What do we do in summer in NEPA? We swim on that day.

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Reach Jim at contact@jamesrising.com Even more rants are on his blog, updated every day at jamesrising.com

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