Poolside in Pomona

The Pomona Plunge 1920 -- later renamed Ganesha Park Swimming Pool -- is still in operation. St. Joseph's Swimming Pool closed years ago, as did many public swimming pools throughout the country. Some closed due to integration after the Civil Right Act in 1964, according to Heather McGhee in her book The Sum of Us, 2021. Private Swim clubs became popular.

There were days in Pomona where I grew up when temperatures broke 100-degrees. That's when I needed a quarter, a fair amount of change when you could get a Snickers bar for a nickel. 

The public swimming pool behind St Joseph's Church and Elementary School on Holt Avenue charged twenty-five cents admission. It was part of an athletic complex that included a football field and dirt track as well as two baseball diamonds, one where Pomona Catholic High School played and another a Little League field where I played. We were warned not to swim on game days because of fatigue.

The pool had a low-dive and a high dive spring board. Each attracted a line of would-be divers waiting to show off with gainers, figure-fours (now called can-openers), flips, one-and-a-half's, swan dives and the occasional mishap of a belly flop. Ouch! That would be me.

Kids from mostly west Pomona, and many who attended St. Joe's Elementary, showed up to cool off and be cool. Two other public pools in town -- at Washington and Ganesha parks -- offered spots to plunge into refreshing water during those sweltering days. I learned to swim at the Washington pool, taught by Coach Bynum.

A fourth option for summer refuge was in the nearby hills at Pudding Stone Reservoir, our local swimming hole, which featured a roped off area with a floating raft and a spring board for diving. Pudding Stone was free but the bike ride up the hill was a bear in the heat. I didn't take that challenge until I was 14.

From 10 to 13 years old, I rode my green Schwinn Corvette three-speed from my house in Kellogg Park to the pool at St. Joe's, maybe three-four miles. My route started on Valley Blvd, which ran west all the way to Los Angeles, about 30 miles away, a useful road through the country before the San Bernardino Freeway (now the called the 10) connected L.A. to the Pomona Valley.

Going east, Valley Blvd met Holt Avenue at an intersection known as Five Points, which featured traffic lights and the convergence of five roads. That's where I pedaled the hardest to make it through the no-man's land of heavy-metal cars and belching smokey trucks going five different directions. 

Nobody heard of a bicycle helmet. Helmets were for football players. 

I wore my swimming trunks underneath my jeans, which I stripped off and placed in a netted green bag with my shirt and shoes. The pool monitor took the bag and gave me a pin with a number that I attached to my trunks so that I could retrieve my clothes at the end of the day.

Mike Powers worked behind the counter, a big, fat guy with a big mouth. He was three years older than me and 300-pounds heavier. He threatened to brainwash me, which meant stick my head in the toilet. I didn't know if he was serious and found out that he was all-talk when he grabbed me, pulled me into the bathroom and told me to scream as if he really was brainwashing me.

Relieved, I went along with it and yelled, "No, Powers! No!"

He wasn't the mean guy he pretended to be. He would later play on the high school football team, which gave him status. Football was big.

Names from those pool days included Tony Purpero, a football linebacker in high school; Billy and Bobby Herrera, great divers, their sister Susan was in my class; Denny Hobbs looked cool with his peroxided hair swept back on the sides; Red-headed Tommy Taylor, my age, and his older brother Pat, a football player and pole vaulter; Kevin Forstner, a gangly southpaw pitcher, basketball point-guard and fancy dancer. And many more I can't remember.

Girls came too but they rarely dove from the boards. They huddled and laughed and made fun of us guys while we were trying to impress them with our diving. I had my eye on Charlene Rasmussen who roller skated in my neighborhood with long ringlet curls.

I was much more naive than my buddy Paul Greene who got busted making out with Linda Grunewald on the lawn at the far end of the pool.

Emerging from the cool water, I rested on my stomach on the hot concrete. My prize was a nickel bag of crunchy, salty corn nuts that tasted better than ever when I was wet and tired, soaking under the sun, the twinge of chlorine smarting in my eyes.

I had practiced a one-and-a-half flip off the low dive and it was time to try that dive off the high board. This particular day I had gotten a ride to the pool and my father came to pick me up. I wanted to show off in front of him. I met him at the chain link fence that surrounded the pool area. 

"I'm going to do a one-and-a-half off the high dive. My first time. Watch me!" 

"Okay, I'll watch," he said in his spare baritone voice. 

The high dive, or three-meter board, is three-times as high as the low board and when I reached the top of the ladder and stood on the springy board that stretched out above the blue water, the pool appeared smaller and farther away. Everything seemed farther away. I stood alone above it all.

I gathered myself, took my three-step approach, bounced once on the end of the board and soared up toward the sky, feeling my body tuck and turn in the air. I finished one flip but wasn't quick enough to lift my hands to protect my head entering the water. My timing was off. I flopped, hitting the water squarely on my chest and face. Smack! It stung. 

I jumped out of the water and walked over to my father. He was laughing. I wasn't prepared for his reaction, but then again, I wasn't prepared for a belly flop. 

"What did the lifeguard do?" I asked.

 "He laughed," my father answered.

I decided to stick with the swan dive from the high board, which was actually more of a show-off dive.