This is how I remember it, the first day clear and in detail. My report here about day two is accurate, although I do not really remember any details, which may mean I only heard my father telling Mother about it at the supper table that second night.
1
It was a hot summer Sunday afternoon in the Texas city where I grew up, maybe in July. It would have been around 1950, when I was not yet in junior high.
A worn and dusty old cream-colored station wagon picked my Dad and me up at our curbside. We had rolled up towels with our bathing suits inside. The wagon was the kind with wood on it and would have been really spiffy when new.
In the car were four African-American men (except that was not what we or they themselves would have called their race back then). They seemed a little younger than my Dad but not markedly so and were no more athletic. They had rolled-up towels with them too. They helped me scramble into the little baggage area behind the second row of seats. The driver introduced each of them to Dad, and they shook hands. Then we drove off.
I knew we were headed to the favorite swimming pool in town. It was the biggest and there was a nice, big park all around it. The pool was fed by natural springs, and the water was always cold. In those days I preferred the little neighborhood pool, where the water would get warm by afternoon and it seemed to have just a little too much chlorine most of the time. But it was familiar. And this was a special occasion. I was glad to be included.
“It’ll be crowded today,” Dad said.
“Yeah, yes,” they all agreed. “Packed!” one of them said. They seemed glad of that too, though I was not.
It was hot in the car with all those men inside. The windows were all open. But I don’t remember being uncomfortable, no doubt wearing short pants and a thin little shirt. All the men were dressed in good slacks with colorful short-sleeved shirts. Dad too. He was asking each of them about themselves, where they lived and what they did for a living… making conversation.
After a while, we arrived in the parking lot outside the pool. We waited while a nice, new dark-blue car that had been parked right in front of the entrance backed out so that we could drive into that prime spot. “That’s Mr. Long,” Dad said giving a little wave. “He must have been here early.” The other car drove off slowly. The man inside waved back.
All of us got out of the station wagon. The air was already cooler under the big live-oak trees. There was a little soda stand right where we parked, where I sometimes bought a Payday bar, but no one mentioned it. We walked casually up to the entrance, where you paid, Dad leading the way.
“I’m ‘C----- Derrick,’” he said. (Dad always introduced himself.) He looked around at the rest of us standing close together right there behind him. “Please, that’ll be three… or wait, there are four of us, aren’t there, boys. So, four adults and one child.” He smiled at me. “That’s my son, ‘Byron,’” he added as he got out his wallet.
The young man sitting behind the glass to take the money was frowning now, looking down, and was silent a minute. Then, he said it would be just a minute please and went a few feet away and spoke to a man at the back desk. We didn’t hear their voices. They both went off together into the office at the back on the side of the women’s dressing room.
Dad looked at the others. “’Just a minute, please’,” he said, reporting to us what the guy had said.
The men shuffled their feet a little but stayed together up there close behind Dad. One of them took my hand.
After a short time, a new man came up briskly to the front window with a sign in his hand. “I’m sorry, folks.” By this time, there were one or two others waiting to pay. He addressed everyone; “I’m sorry, but we have a little problem and have to close the pool for the day.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Dad said to him. “I have my friends here with me from out of town. Can you tell us what’s wrong?”
“A technical problem, I’m afraid. We have to keep everyone safe.” The sign he put up was the printed one in a plastic sleeve that said: “Pool closed.”
Dad led us back toward the little soda stand, but instead they all turned to look down at the pool. Sure enough, lifeguards and the three men we had seen in the front office were approaching the folks sunbathing or standing near the pool. Most of them were teenagers or college students. Everyone started gathering up their belongings.
“They’re really going to close,” one of us said.
When we were driving out of the parking lot, my Dad said cheerfully, “I wonder how much money they lost today.”
The others thought that was funny. I didn’t see the joke but laughed too.
“Lots of cash!” one said.
2
The next Sunday, the same old station wagon came and got us. I don’t know if I had been swimming since the last time, but probably had. It was still hot, of course.
Dad said, “Well, let’s give them another chance.” The others quietly assented. We drove most of the way in silence (except for the roar of that old engine).
The same guy in the same blue car was parked in the same place out front. This time he was standing next to his car while waiting for us. He gave us a look and nodded our way. Then, as we waited he got in his car and drove off.
We went over to the window as we had the week before, Dad in the lead with me among the next two. The other two came up beside us. I thought everyone was looking a little grim.
The older man was sitting at the window; the sign next to him said how much it cost to swim there. “There are four of us,” Dad said, “and one child.” He started getting out his wallet.
The man said how much it would cost and gave Dad his change. The younger man appeared and brought up baskets with safety pins that had numbered tags attached, one for each of us. In the men’s bath house, as we put on our suits, Dad was the only one who spoke at first. “Well, fellows,” he said. “Let’s us have a nice little swim.”
“I hope that water is really cold,” one of the others replied. No one smiled or anything.
We stayed about a half-hour at the pool, retrieved our clothes in the baskets at the wide window where we had turned them in, and showered before getting dressed. If I’m not mistaken, a man with his two young boys was just coming in as we got ready to leave. “Well, hello, 'C-----',” he said heartily and shook hands. I don’t remember my dad's introducing his friends to this other dad.
3
A small picture on an inside page in that Monday’s newspaper showed the pool where we had been but without anybody present. The headline said, “City Pools Integrated, Parks Commissioner Says.” It was a small notice next to the photo.
***
