Lakewood

Swimming was a favorite summer pastime for my giant family, and has been for generations. My childhood summer memories revolved completely around our time at the swimming club our whole family belonged to. In fact, my mom and even my grandma grew up going there. It opened in maybe the 1930's as a sandy bottom pond with a big metal slide out in the middle of the water. Lakewood was also home to the "Cabana Club," which hosted all kinds of live musical acts that my Grandparents went to dance to. As a special part of their lives, they also raised all 9 of their kids spending summers at Lakewood. By then, it had been paved into a big, chlorinated pool. Then, for the first 11 years of my life, I spent every warm summer day lounging next to the second pool that was built sometime while my parents were young.

When I was 11, we got our own pool in the yard, and that was the sad end of an era. Not many years later, Lakewood closed and broke many hearts.

Although I only spent a handful of my early summers there, Lakewood dominates so many of my favorite childhood memories. I thought I'd catalog a bunch of them here for safe keeping...

On our drives to Lakewood, my cousins and I would pile into the back of Grandma's station wagon. If we took a particular road (County Line) on the way, we would pass a factory with a storage silo painted with a big clown. For some reason, this was exciting for us!

The entrance to Lakewood's parking lot took you across a bridge, which was painted red. When we knew we were getting close, we would all keep our eyes peeled for the bridge, and the second it came into view, we'd all chant "I see Lakewood, I see Lakewood..." until we got there. Apparently, this was a tradition that was started by the generation before us and continued as we came along.

We had a particular area in the grass along the East side of the lap pool that our family always set up camp and spread our towels and bags. Sometimes, even now, if I'm laying in the sun with the sounds of nearby swimmers and the feel of grass under my towel and toes, my memories of Lakewood trigger nostalgia in my heart.

The walk from the entrance to "our spot" took us past the double drinking fountain (did I mention the whole place is fed by a cold natural spring?) It was always a tradition of mine and my cousin to stop for a drink on the way in. Every single time. I can still taste it if I try really hard...

Near the drinking fountains was a paved walkway down a hill, which was lined on both sides by arborvitae bushes. To this very day, the smell of those kinds of bushes trigger a craving for soft serve ice cream --- a traditional snack on the way out after a day of sunshine and swimming (if we were lucky).

Funnily enough, a lot of my negative memories of Lakewood have to do with my feet. I learned the hard way not to go barefoot to the playground full of clover. I have vivid memories of stepping on a bee at least twice, starting a strict rule about wearing shoes to go swing and teeter-totter. We also eventually learned the hard way that going anywhere away from the pools without our flip-flops was bound to be a toasty trip for the tootsies. We would hop and skip along the pavement from shady spot to shady spot to avoid the hot spots in the sun. Another particular memory I dreaded was some wooden floors in a couple of places. There was an enclosed walkway "shortcut" between the two pool areas that I must have slipped on the wet floor of, because I remember being scared to walk through there without holding a hand to avoid falling. The other spot that I didn't enjoy was the floor of the changing room in the big building. I never liked when we had to get dressed before we left because the feeling of water sitting on the painted wood floor felt "slimy" and grossed me out! On most days we simply laid towels on the seats of the car and went home in our damp suits.

One of my fonder memories is sitting in one of the shelter houses and eating the inevitable picnic lunch someone had packed. Grandma's chipped ham and Miracle Whip sandwiches on white bread were a serious favorite.

We all had to take swimming lessons at Lakewood as well. These took place in the larger, original pool, and I remember freezing in the cold morning water, kicking around behind floating dumbbells and diving to retrieve pennies off the floor of the shallow end.

In my years, the old Cabana Club was still kicking, but on some extra special days, we would stay until evening and go there to play Bingo and eat salty popcorn from the box. The walk over to the Cabana Club was always fun because it took us past the koi pond, where we could buy fish food from a coin machine and watch the giant koi eat it up.

When we got tired of swimming or on cooler days, we would go play a round of putt-putt, which was near the entrance. The majority of the time, though, it was something we asked about on the way in for the day and heard "maybe later," which I know now as a parent really means "ugh, I really don't feel like doing that, so we'll put it off and hope they forget about it." lol

So many good memories and so many more not mentioned... What I wouldn't give to go back to that innocent time and spend just one more hot, summer day at Lakewood.