Hard work and good fortune enabled Sharon and I to have a second home in the desert. It wasn’t by some fortuitous accident but rather our focused attempt to carve out a place of comfort for our respective families to gather. Alternating each year between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, our children’s families came to stay with us for a week or more.
Right from the start, our back patio became the focal point for all kinds of family gatherings, games, meals, discussions, staged readings, parties and, of course, aquatic gymnastics.
It was a wonderful opportunity for the cousins to get better acquainted, respective families to share time (and wine) together and for everyone to grow memories for a lifetime. One of the highlights of each visit were the aquatic antics, ventures, and creative games our grandkids thought up eight feet under and over the water.
Even as toddlers, swathed in floaties or arm bands, the grandchildren quickly became aquatic babies spending hours in and under the water. They rode boogie boards in manmade waves, skipped across the pool in a bridge made up of floatie devices and practiced all sorts of weird dives off the deep end.
As teens and pre-teens, the aquatic antics continued with even more elaborate games and contests. For several seasons, a slide was added to the mixed and only added to the high-jinx.
Reconstruction of the pool from plain to pebbletec didn’t slow down their activities or antics. As the years passed, one fact became more and more apparent. None of the floatie devices could withstand the onslaught of their vigorous games. One by one the floaties were destroyed, some in less than a day or two.
Fact is, the capsizing kiddos have destroyed just about every inflatable we’ve thrown at them. Two alligators, a unicorn floaty, inflatable canoe, balls of all sizes and shapes, floaty devices and a slide have all succumbed to their overly enthusiastic poolside antics. The one survivor, thus far, seems to be the gerbil ball.
Over the years, the pool has become a talisman for both families. It is, at once, a gathering spot, a giant board game, a challenging contest, a deep-sea submersible venture, a place to play ‘horse,’ catch, and a dozen other unnamed games of the imagination.
At some point, Sharon and I know it’s all going to all end. Maya, the eldest is already in college. The others aren’t that far behind. Personal commitments, social factors, and life in general will soon demand more and more of their time and attention. Nana’s pool as the great equalizer will have to change along with the times.
But until then, for all those formative years up until now, it’s been a favorite gathering spot for the kiddos and a memory maker of the most wonderful kind. All that will eventually become history but the memories will endure, etched permanently on the collective minds of the young ones who grew up catching waves and making joy in ‘Nana’s pool.’
