Book Entry 139: 1978 or 1979 Our Swimming Pool

How exciting.  I don’t know if I was more excited or the kids to be getting a pool.  The kids were all good swimmers.  We had a pool put in our back yard.  I remember it took about six weeks but the company only worked on it twelve days.  I kept count on a calendar.  I guess each step had cement that needed to cure or something. 

During this time we kept Mickie in the house or locked in a yard away from the pool. When the guys were working on the pool Mickie would bark and lunge at the fence separating the yards.

 Larry had put an electric wire across the top of the fence to keep Mickie in.  He was able to climb and get out before the electric wire.  One of the construction workers asked Larry why the electric wire was on the top of the fence.  Larry never missed an opportunity to pull someone’s leg so he told him we had a ferocious dog that could get out and attack them if it weren’t fore the wire.

The next time the workers came Mickie was in our new bedroom.  It was on the second story with a balcony overlooking the backyard.  Mickie barked and barked at the workers.  We could see from the kitchen window they kept one eye on their work and one eye on our bedroom window.  Mickie’s reputation as “A killer dog” continued to grow and spread through the workers.  

When the fellow from the county came to do his final inspection it was obvious the pool company had warned him about our ferocious dog!  He pulled his pick up close to the pole where the papers were he needed to sign.  He got out of his pickup, walked in a sideways gate to the pole, took the tablet off the hook, signed the paper, and got back into his pickup.  He had his eyes constantly on the gate to the fence with the electric wire across the top.  Mickie was showing off his usual bark routine.  That fellow had his door shut and was on his way down our driveway within minutes.  I don’t think he ever even glanced at the pool or any of its components.  Larry and I had watched this from the kitchen window.  We both had tears in our eyes from laughter.

As soon as the pool was full years of fun swimming began.  Heidi and Robin wore out dozens of socks the skin off their toes because of the roughness of the new plaster in the pool.  Their little toes stung and left spots of blood all over the cement around the pool. 

It was really sad.  As long as they stayed in the pool they were so busy and having so much fun they didn’t feel their toes but as soon as they’d get out of the water their toes would begin to sting.  As soon as they started to sting the girls would jump back in…..this went on for weeks.  Adams toes got sore too but he was too short to touch the bottom so he didn’t do a lot of pushing off the bottom and sides like the girls.

They would wear the socks until the bottoms were gone, then they’d wear them upside down.  They’d wear their own socks, they’d wear each other’s sock, they even wore my old socks.  Any comfort was welcome and any sock would do.  I guess their toes finally toughed up.  We must have gone thru a hundred pairs of socks the first couple years we had the pool.