WSCC Pool Creates Family
By Robert Stanley Waslowicz
January 8, 2024
I learned to swim 60 years ago. My dad was in the Navy and after Iwo Jima, he was resigned to the fact that if he ever made it home, and if he ever was blessed with children, they would all know how to swim. With feigned indignation the five of us would plop into the frigid pool at Lipke Park on the east side of Detroit and join our fellow baby boomers learning how to swim.
Now retired, I gently pour myself into the warm water at Westshore Community College Pool, I hold on to mawkish delight as I look at the landscape of swimmers. I see seniors enriching well-lived lives, by water walking, aerobics, and lap swims. They are survivors who bore the storms as they bore the sun. I see patients bearing the scars of their life journey. The stitches are their struggle to live a life with meaning. Some use canes, some use walkers, and a few use wheelchairs. I see one service dog in somnambulant repose on the pool deck.
Covid has regretfully taken its toll on some activites such as open swims but not on those special memories. In my mind’s eye, I see moms and dads teaching their kids how not to be afraid of the water. I am enchanted by the innocence of a 7-year-old who gifts us with her pure joy. Her ebullience is buoyant. I see grandmas and grandpas sharing their life stories with their grandchildren. It is hard to tell who is happier.
Sometimes our illustrious lifeguards will jump in the lanes, and I feel like a dolphin in a pod. They swim with us and then slowly move into the distance with long strokes. I think it is just to keep us humble.
Then Mason county schools invade the pool with busloads of ecstatic kids. They are shouting and screaming with an ear-piercing intensity. I think this must be what a Taylor Swift concert is like. As if I don’t remember The Beetles on Ed Sullivan. These young people are delighted to go for a swim in the middle of winter.
It is said, a pebble dropped in a placid pond changes everything. How much more the shatter of calm in the Westshore Community Pool with a coterie of swimmers, each of diverse purpose and ability, yet each coming to a single place.
This place is a Mason County landmark. It would be a shame to close it. The splash waves are a tsunami that affects the entire county. The Community College is invested in the Humankind series that brings awareness about diversity. The pool is the stage that sets the bar of expectation.
We are thankful to the lifeguards, we thank Julie and her staff that greet us, we thank the maintenance team and all the pool people that make our life better.
The wisdom of my father teaches that swimming is discipline, character, and saves lives. Now as I swim into the sunset at Westshore Community College, I realize it is not just about the swim, but it is also about the people you meet along the way. It is more than a Community Pool. It is a family.
Robert Stanley Waslowicz
Robert Waslowicz - Robert is a native Detroiter and a retired Michigan teacher. He is also retired from Beaumont Health and the Texas Medical Center Houston.