(The Big Pink Pool Gate is open and the season has begun. Photo Socotra.)

It is strange writing about Up There, when I am down here on the farm, with the big F-250 pick-up trucks rumbling down the farm lane early for the horse event at Rosemary’s Summerduck Run Farm just up the road. Damn, it is good to be in the country.

I guess this strange juxtaposition will go on for a while as the pile of crap diminishes at Big Pink and gets larger down here.

I had a large load to get down here, and the Panzer was prepared, seats folded down, trunk compartment cover removed, and lean and ready to take boxes of books and clothes and fragile stuff I have no particular use for, but meant something at one time to someone and for which I am now custodian.

We all have our little crosses to bear, and this one, on the whole, is not bad.

I had crap staged by the door and looked at the clock. It was a little before ten, and it was unseasonably chill, with a brisk breeze under crystalline blue skies and bright thin sun. I changed into trunks and flip-flops with a t-shirt and sweater to open the season.

I packed the iPad and the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine I am going to let go when the subscription expires later this summer. The cover article was about what straight couples could learn from gay ones, and I blinked at how the world has changed in such short order.

The magazine has a new format- sort of Atlantic Lite- and with some other grand old print publications (like the one I used to edit) I am going to shed the weight of the issues. I threw out a couple years worth of them in the Great Purge I had been meaning to get around to, but the hell with it. World enough and time, the man said, and he was right.

I grabbed a towel, forgot the pool pass and went down to the elevator and said “Hi!” to Lauren at the front desk and padded back down the corridor to the side exit and sat on Tony’s patio wall, waiting patiently for the latest crop of young Poles to show up and open the steel fence.

They are usually early on the first day of the season, so it was unusual for this eleventh start to the outdoor aquatic season. I found I could get a signal from my Wi-Fi router all the way down there. All the ‘netizens of the building are broadcasting the contents of their most intimate communications to all sorts of ranges, so it is a powerful argument to keep things encrypted.

The breeze was positively cutting, and glancing at the time on the iPad, I realized that there was something wrong. Too cold for the pool opening? This global warming thing is hell. I gave up as I started to shiver and went back to see Lauren at the front desk and inquire if the opening had been postponed.

She shrugged her substantial shoulders and gave me a brilliant smile. “If they did, they haven’t told me.”

“Could you just loan me the keys to the gate for a second?” I asked, and she politely declined.

So, I was disappointed but went back to putting things in boxes and hauling them down to the Panzer. On one of the trips Lauren called out: “The lifeguards called. They are running late, but should be there now.”

“Mind if I park the cart in the foyer while I go and jump in? I don’t want to miss being first just because they are late.”

She told me she would keep an eye on the cart, though increasingly I sort of hope someone would just help out and roll it away and deal with the crap themselves.

No towel, of course, since I was in mid-trip, but what the hell. Some things are important.
Joe, the Deputy Commander of Deep Blue Aquatic Management was walking up the sidewalk, escorting a small gaggle of New Junior Poles who would be supervising us on the pool deck through the summer. I introduced myself to all six, some of whom I am going to know very well before this season is done.

Joe graciously did not insist on seeing my pool pass, and regally waved me through the gate ahead of the life-guards.

“You can just get the ritual out of the way. You don’t need to sign in. Get wet.”

I thanked him profusely, rolling my sweater up over my head and depositing it on the usual table that was still without umbrella. Keys, pass and glasses followed and the breeze on my skin was cutting. Nothing for it but to do it. I turned and marched toward the edge, the water glittering in the little corner where the sun shone down over the battlements of the building.

No point in thinking. I jumped toward the water, waiting for the shock and marveling that the muscles on the left leg worked, sort of. What a change from last year. Some things get better, I thought, in the millisecond before water impact.

And then there was the splash.

Game on, Gentle Readers. Game on.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com