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The pool closed last night. It is the official change of the season. The mild summer lacked the squishy moist heat that we usually endure, and had the curious effect of never allowing the water to truly warm up much above 80 degrees all season. That had the practical effect of leaving us practically chilled when we emerged from the water through the hottest season of the year.<\/p>\n
They tell us that the old-school pool has \u201cissues.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was completed with the building in 1964, so in the great maintenance scheme of things it is an even half century old this year. Leo the Building Engineer tells us there are problems deep under the deep end- corroded pipes on the edge of failure. Major contraction is going to be required to get at them. That is going to require intrusive intervention, not dissimilar to what was required at the Pentagon when they took the interior down to stark concrete.<\/p>\n
It is going to be a tough season of broken cement and digging and new pours, so this closing will not have the bittersweet devolution of most years. The flowers will be allowed to die, as they always are. Excess water will be pumped out, of course, spreading the chlorinated flow across the west side of the parking lot and down into the storm drains.<\/p>\n
The pool furniture will be collected and stored down in the Life Guard\u2019s room in the basement. After that, I don\u2019t have a good feel for what will happen going forward.<\/p>\n
Will all the water be pumped out? We don\u2019t have the risk of the concrete walls of the pool popping up out of the ground, as some renters did to a pal\u2019s in-ground aquatic center in Florida. The routine maintenance became a burden, and they emptied the thing, no knowing it was the weight of the water that kept in in place. Oops!<\/p>\n
So I don\u2019t know how vast the scope of this project is going to be, or how intrusive to my personal space it is going to be.<\/p>\n
We were talking about it last night, waiting for the Last Leap into the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuppose they replace it with one of those modern wimp pools that is only about three feet deep?\u201d asked Jiggs.<\/p>\n
The Doc is still mad that they took the diving board away a few years ago. \u201cIt is always something about liability and insurance,\u201d she said with a frown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why we don\u2019t have a roof garden.,\u201d I said. \u201cI have seen the drawings. The roof is designed to support one, and the view is unbelievable. You can see from the Masonic Temple in Alexandria all the was up to District Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never been up there. Why can\u2019t we go out and look?\u201d
\n\u201cInsurance. Apparently someone threw themselves off the roof in the 1960s.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is the difference between throwing yourself off the roof and jumping off an 8th floor balcony?\u201d<\/p>\n
I shrugged and took a pull from my drink. \u201cI think it amounts to the same thing. But speaking of leaps, I think it is about time for one.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Joe and Jiggs and I got up from Joe\u2019s patio table, grabbed our towels, and marched out to formally end the summer.<\/p>\n
Jiggs did a cannonball into the deep end as Joe and I synchronized our jumps to de-conflict the impact. The water was warmer than the air, crisp and refreshing. Milla and Margaret took photos to document the event, and I dawdled enough to ensure that I was the last one out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d said Joe, toweling off vigorously. \u201cI guess that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I just hope there is a pool deep enough to jump into next year,\u201d said Jiggs.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime will tell,\u201d I said. \u201cI will be keeping an eye on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"091514-2\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/091514-2-374x281.jpg\")
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Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com
\nTwitter: @jayare303<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pool closed last night. It is the official change of the season. The mild summer lacked the squishy moist heat that we usually endure, and had the curious effect of never allowing the water to truly warm up much above 80 degrees all season. That had the practical effect of leaving us practically chilled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8785,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8781\/revisions\/8785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}