How about some reminiscing about the worst pools you ever were forced to work out and/or compete in ??
Our old pool was 20 yards long, with gutters and the deck was about 2 feet above that. The water level was always low, so it was like ocean swimming every day. There were no starting blocks and the "lane lines" were nylon cord with a plastic bobber every 3 feet or so. The water was always quite warm to accomodate the family swims and lessons that were also sharing the pool during the day.
Since goggles had not yet been invented and the only antiseptic method was chlorine (lots of it), we would have those chlorine "light halos" until the next day. The kick-boards were solid, varnished wood and they doubled as pull-buoys. There were no fins or hand paddles.
Thank the higher power of your choice that we had a GREAT coach.
Oh, did I mention that they used to beat us with knives???
Bert
Former Member
Are we talking about the 1880's and 1890's. Maybe, there are some of those pools still in existance in the east coast I don't know. Bert states thank God for California. I would think that a swimmer his age had an opportunity to swim in the old LA olympic pool, whose design in gutters and other things were for the 1930's and I swam in the thing in 1972. That pool was cold as hell and they even use it for major events like the LA I up to 1972. The warm up pool was worst. Who wants to warm up in a pool around 72 degrees. Also, California had its share of old 33 and 1/3 pools. As a kid I swam in the Belliflower pool. And I too young for the salt water pools.
In the 1940s I was a lifeguard during the summer in an outdoor pool in West Virginia. No filter, drained once per week, always cold, always over chlorinated and to top all this off by mid-week you could not see more than six inches down from the top of the water. How did we keep people from drowning? It is a total mystery to me!
Anyone remeber the old Union College pool in
Schenectady, NY? The pool was supposed to be (according to the engineer's plan) 75'+1". They built it 76 feet long.
There was a hole cut in the ceiling above the springboard.
Depth of the pool under the board was about 8 feet.
The diver on our college team badly cut his nose on the
bottom of the pool.
If you really want to tour one of America's worst pools, check out the downtown Y in Columbia, SC. After you leave a pretty decent locker room, you descend stairs to the original locker/shower room, no longer working. It is vaguely similar in appearance to some of the showers you see in really violent prison movies. After this brief Alcatraz moment, proceed to the pool area.
The pool is a 20 yard metal contraption with 18" of deck all around it. No lane lines and if you jump with minimal effort you can knock your head on the ceiling. Fortunately, it is really crowded, they keep the water level low and there are no gutters. The results is a pleasurable experience of open water swimming indoors, complete with waves.
I once swam at a Y in Atlanta where the sink apparently doubled as a toilet. But, that's another story.
My worst was the indoor pool at the Pelham, AL YMCA. Four lanes wide, water temp at least 85 degrees, a full two feet of wall above the water all around with terrible gutters that accomplished nothing. One guy in the pool would get the waves going; two would require a small craft advisory.
It was dark in there and the water was cloudy. No lane ropes. Water was too shallow at one end, so that my flip turns became weird somersaults with one hand on the bottom to keep from actually rolling on my head. Plus, the water tasted salty.
The weird thing about it is that, while it sounds like one of those old pools the other folks have talked about, it's a relatively new facility. The rest of the building is quite nice. God knows why they screwed up the pool like that.
My second worst has to be the one where I swim now, just because it's crowded. Not a practice goes by that I don't get kicked, punched, head-butted or have someone swim up on top of me. I had one guy swing his arm over the rope doing freestyle and smack me in the face. I had another kick wide under the rope doing *** and whack me in the ribs. I even had one guy swing his arm wide under the rope and snag my suit, almost pulling it down.
We have speed assignments in the lanes to try to group swimmers with similar skills, but nobody pays attention to them. The lifeguards are supposed to move people who are in the wrong lane, but they rarely pay attention and act as though you're putting them out if you ask them to do their jobs.
The pool is too warm, but you get used to it. Unfortunately, however, every now and then they decide the temperature isn't right, and they'll start pumping in water of a drastically different temperature at the ends of the pool. The result is that you swim through bands of alternately boiling and freezing water.
There's an observation deck over the pool where you can stand and watch the real swimmers dodge the ones struggling not to drown for some entertainment.
That's why my signature says...
Like Dennis somewhere above mentioned, the Oaxtepec Pool in Mexico could be terrible at times but it was at least a 50 meter pool with a separate diving well. I swam there in 1981 when it was relatively new and it was great and went steadily downhill from there. However, having spent quite a few years in Mexico in my early teens I can attest that it was not nearly as bad as the pool I had to train in daily at the ISSTE in Jiutepec, Morelos. This pool was about 18yds long, had no filter system, no heating and was only emptied and refilled a couple of times a year. The water was a murky brown. I think the only redeeming quality to is was that on play days we could play waterpolo and disappear underwater only to reappear elsewhere without notice.
I love when hotels/resorts tout their "Olympic-sized" pools. Yeah sure. I have stayed a number of times in a resort in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that brags about their Olympic-sized pools. (The name is withheld to protect innocent pools.) At this facility, there are two indoor (one fairly large and one smaller) and one outdoor, which used to be connected to the smaller indoor pool by swimming under a glass-framed wall of windows. This made for interesting laps ... you started indoors then ended outdoors. When you came up for air on the outdoors and the wind was right, you were treated to the perfume from a cow farm next door to the resort. :eek:
The largest pool at this resort is a T-shaped pool, the leg of the T being shorter the top of the T which was longer. The long part of the pool has lanes marked on the bottom but no ropes. But the strangest thing about this pool is that it's shallow at one end and shallow at the other end, making the middle the deepest part. The pool design does not compete with the over-chlorination of the pool, though. Upon walking into the pool building, you nose automatically goes to "over chlorination" warning. God forbid if you forget your goggles! Once when I did forget 'em, my eyes burned so badly that I couldn't wear my contact lenses for a good 18 hours. I would wager that if one were to wear a new suit in that pool and work out there regularly, one could kiss it good-bye after two weeks' worth of use. And don't ask your skin as to what happened to it!
And if you want to work out, you'd better get to the pool early in the morning when the pool is not officially open. If you don't, you will then have swim an obstacle course of people who probably think you are crazy for swimming laps. Once, when I was there in the early morning, there were two other people there, husband and wife. When I got into the water (and brought my own buoy, kick board and fins), I somehow got into the un-roped middle lane between those two folks. The husband asked me to move over to allow his wife to be next to him. When they left (maybe I intimidated them), a man and his son showed up and got in. They got in all right ... in my way. I think I finished my workout by zig-zagging around them.
To give credit where it's due, the pools, along with the rooms, at this resort are spotless. And ... the food, served as a smorgasbord, is very, very good.
My wife wants to go and stay at one of the casinos in Atlantic City, NJ. At least one of them has a 25-yard lap pool with lanes, ropes and no children before 10:00 A.M. So, it's a matter of who has a decent pool. Alas! Why don't they design some hotels/resorts/whatever with us in mind for once?
I was going to complain about past horrible pools, but i don't think i can beat the "sink/toilet"
The worst pool i was in was actually at a campground type place. It couldn't have been more than 16-18 yards or so long and even in the "deep end" you couldn't dive. The walls would go straight for about a foot before starting a slope towards the center of the pool. (kind of like a bathtub) The thing had stairs and i'm not sure, but i think that linolium or some sort of bathroom flooring/wallpaper replaced cement inside the pool.
In another pool i was shaking so bad the instructor asked if i'd like to leave the pool early. I accepted the offer.
There are some real horror stories. I can't beat the hole in the ceiling but there was a pool during my high school swimming days
that had a sign above the diving board which read:
DANGER
LOW CEILING
The sign was on a pad attached to the ceiling.
