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July 29, 2004
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July 29, 2004 |
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A summer’s night in the pool, with Spider-man and friends
According to a sampling of the 70 youth who went to the Gaunt Park pool movie night last Friday, swimming at night is “just fun.” It could be the eery white lights that waggle under water as if through a fog. It could be the giant inner tubes and inflatable rafts not allowed in the pool during the day. It could be that there is hardly a parent in sight for two hours of wild splashing, pizza eating and movie watching that lasts until the moon sits high in the sky. At 9:20 p.m. Friday, long after the pool has closed for the daytime crowd, people, mostly kids between the ages of 8 and 15, gather outside the pool entrance. With towels around their necks and inner tubes encircling their bodies, many brandish the crumpled five-dollar bill that provides entry into their own corner of the night. There they are free to hang out with friends and answer only to one of the four high school and college lifeguards on duty. The sun is down, and the air is cool, and the kids have come ready to swim. At 9:30 sharp the gates swing open and the crowd rushes in. Kids quickly hand off their bills and grab a spot on the grass, mostly in front of the girls’ bathroom wall where this week’s movie, Spider-Man, will be projected. The water glows, undisturbed until the first brave soul jumps in. The water feels warmer than the air, they all agree, and soon there are more wet bodies than dry ones. A line forms at the front counter, where only the lifeguards stand between salivating mouths and 14 large Fox’s pizzas. Swimmers get pizza, chips and a drink and sit down to watch part of the movie, which has already begun. Some of them stay put, but most wolf down their food and join the water rampage. From the pool, the movie is more or less inaudible, but as the kids surface and bob on the water for a rest, they catch familiar scenes and sometimes fill in the dialogue themselves. Most of them have already seen the movie multiple times, but, as Brendan Moore put it, “never from the water.” As Spider-Man leaps around New York City nabbing bad guys, Andrew Stratton leaps into the pool, nabbing willing subjects to dunk. Douglas Wambaugh jets around with a pair of flippers, while his friends Nick Thompson and Sam Lovering make splashing war. There are no harsh whistles to catch them, only flashlights the guards shine on the guilty parties. And no one takes a rest break, unless the break is to go and get another slice of pepperoni pizza. “Hey, Dylan, can I have more pizza and a refill on the chips?” Nick asks lifeguard Dylan Borchers, home from college for the summer. The boys know each other from the pool and from town, as do most of the other kids and lifeguards. Beyond the chaos in the front of the pool, Elizabeth Price, the only adult in the water, floats peacefully on a styrofoam noodle in a calmer area at the deep end. She floats where the current takes her and as she eddies into rougher waters she smiles at the kids who slither, squirm and swoosh around each other with the abandon that being scantily clad in the dark might elicit. “I absolutely love to swim at night, it’s more mysterious,” Price said. “It’s like I become a real fish at night as opposed to during the day when I’m a human being.” The water feels warmer at night because the air is cool, she said. And when she comes out of the pool she likes to wrap herself with a big terry cloth robe and eat hot pizza. “I just love the pool, it makes life in Yellow Springs wonderful,” she said. Price has come to nearly every movie night at the pool since they started in mid-June. From her front row noodle she’s seen Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, and by popular demand, Jaws. Though Jaws drew the biggest and most diverse crowd of the summer, nearly 150 people, the movie nights have turned out to attract mostly kids, pool manager Jessica Cunningham said. Pool employees created movie night to increase community involvement with the pool, where revenue has fallen short of expenses in the past several years. Though organizers mainly hoped night swims would improve the pool’s image, they have also generated a small profit. On average, movie nights cost the pool about $250, but they are able to bring in an average of $600, Borchers said. “The pool doesn’t normally pay for itself, but with the movie nights, overall, we’ve made money,” he said. One of the handful of parents at the pool on Friday night suggested that the pool could draw adults to a separate night swim by creating an atmosphere that appeals more to them. Some parents might prefer to spend an evening at the pool away from the charming but exhausting energy of their children, she said. Price agreed that the kids’ rambunctious energy is great, but she can’t relax when she has to work so hard dodging them. “I love to have the kid night, I’m totally for that, but it would be nice to add one or two adult parties and see how that goes,” she said. This Friday night, July 30, is the last movie night planned for this summer. Tentative plans are to show the 2003 movie Big Fish. Pool employees might hold an Olympic games day in August in honor of this year’s Summer Olympics, said Cunningham, who stated they are considering other new activities to draw people to the pool next year. |
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