The City Pool

BJ Class of 68: One of my fondest memories of growing up in Forrest City was spending the whole summer at the city swimming pool. For $50 you could buy a season pass and swim all day every day through June, July and August. It was a big pool with four separate sections.

Each summer as I grew up I took swimming lessons. You started out in the shallow end, which was half-moon shaped. There you just learned to put your face under water and gradually get used to going under water in about two feet of water. Next you graduated to the south section that was about four feet deep and had some monkey bars you could swim around. You learned to glide and kick there. After that, you moved down to the west end of that section of the pool where it was the same depth but no monkey bars to hang onto. On around the pool you progressed each year until finally you were good enough to swim in the deep section in the middle where the diving boards were. By the time I got to high school I was back in the shallow end again, this time as an instructor teaching little three year olds to put their faces in the water.

I loved to swim and always went every day and stayed until closing time at 6:00. I would ride my bike there, my dog running along with me. While I spent the day swimming, he hung out on the other side of the fence under the shade trees until I was ready to go home.

I remember having crushes on the life guards and jumping off the high dive. And, I remember that on a regular basis the pool had to be completely drained and refilled. We hated that because the next day the water was always icy cold.

Anybody remember playing Marco Polo? What fun times we had at the city pool.

(Admin note: Pictures above are similar to F.C. pool but not actual. Anyone have any real ones?)

Butch Class of 60: I was re-reading the pool comments and a couple of other things came to mind. I remember Ollie Warren, among others, doing crazy "dives" off the high dive. Ollie would launch himself in any kind of twisting, somersaulting, flipping thing that could never be referred to as a dive. He would wear a cut off sweat shirt or a T-shirt to protect his back from the frequent pancake landings. There were others, but Ollie was king of the comic dives. I think he also tried some serious diving, maybe in some competitions. Anyone remember that? A few years later, Ollie was part of a trampoline/tumbling troup that entertained basketball crowds at Arkansas State during half-time.

The other memory, isn't so happy. I remember when we were in maybe the sixth or seventh grade, Don Kelly, an older brother of one of our classmates, Jerry, drowned at the pool. He was doing some kind of stunt in the deep end with some other guys. The life guards usually would whistle you away from the back of the deep end, under the diving boards, but they were unaware that Don and his buddies were fooling around down there. I don't know what the object of the stunt was, but they were trying to stay under for a long time. About half way down the pool wall, there was an open port where the very strong filter pump would pull water out of the pool. It was about nine inches across. Don stuck his knee into the port to help him retain his position down deep. The suction prevented him from pulling his knee out and he was unable to get to the surface. The life guards and others frantically took turns diving down and trying to pull him out... Finally, someone turned off the pump, but it was too late. It was a traumatic thing for everyone in town. I never felt right in the pool afterwards. They put a grid-like cover over the exhaust port, but kids stayed away from that area of the pool for a long time.