Save Yost Pool

Where did you learn to swim?

Family lore has me learning to swim the old fashioned way -- My Dad tossed me gently but firmly ito the icy Index River on a camping trip and let me figure it out on my own. I was three. It worked. And I loved it from the start.

This debut was followed by a series of swimming lessons. I had the desire but didn't have a clue what to do with it. Swimming lessons were the highlight of every summer, growing up in the idyllic suburban Seattle of the 1970s. My mom would take Kimberley and me to Yost Pool, nestled in the hills above Edmonds, the small ferry-boat town on Puget Sound.

Kim, who is 16 months older than I am, was a strong, coordinated swimmer. Driven by the pressures of her schedule, or maybe a motherly over-estimation of the talents of her second daughter, my mom was convinced that we should be in lessons at the same time. That meant that if there was no class for less experienced kids at the same time as Kim's lesson, I had to step up and join hers. (Back then, the Red Cross was not nearly so stringent about swimming lesson progression as we are today!)

So, picture me as the scrawny, blue-lipped kid, tagging along. I remember being frustrated sometimes. Would I ever master chicken-airplane-soldier? I remember the sunny, cold mornings. That shocking sweetness of first immersion. I remember patient instructors, small victories, and learning to love the smell of chlorine in my skin.

I recall the day Nixon resigned, and the news coverage we watched that August morning in 1974. My parents remember me getting very upset and asking, If there is no president, can we still go to swimming lessons? Indeed we could. So we packed our suits and towels and headed for Yost Pool. The country may have been in turmoil, but I was going to get another shot at the elementary backstroke.

Yost Pool sits in a beautiful park-like setting. Sometimes, in the afternoons, we would take the bus or ride our bikes there and swim to our hearts content with our neighbors and friends, dreading the "clear the pool" clarion that would signal the end of yet another summer day. Then as now, I never want to get out of the water.

Today, budget issues have plagued the pool and indeed the city of Edmonds itself. Without help, Yost Pool will close. A grassroots effort to raise funds for the pool is underway, though about $20,000 short of its goal. If you remember Yost Pool, or if you remember a place like this from your childhood, please help if you can.

http://www.saveyostpool.com/