barry liss on 
Kathy Tepsa on 
clhughes on I hate when I piggyback on the brilliance of Robert Mentzer, but in this case I am going to. Recently the Wausau Daily Herald wrote about the pools needing to be a focus, and something we should invest in.
It is going to be 99 degrees today. So, um, yeah. Pools. We need pools. At this point we need hoses, puddles, slip and slides, and sprinklers. We need cold water to prevent people from boiling. If you have cold water we can dip ourselves in, you have an attraction worthy of a line, a guy selling tickets, and two carnies to clean up.
But, more than that, we need pools. I spent my high school and early college years working at the RS Pool. For those of us who live here, that’s the Rothschild Pool. No one said the S. It was a more primitive time. There was a high dive, and we used chlorine GAS to treat the water. What a crazy time.
I remember those times very well. I considered the lifeguards my family, even when I went away to college. One of us ended up being a professional Ironman Triathlete. One lives in France. But, we are all bonded by strange lifeguard experiences, like Cam drinking two liters of water in 60 seconds, then barfing up the water, just to win a bet. Or Gus long jumping from the roof into the shallow end of the pool on the last day of summer. Or me ending up in the hospital with chlorine gas poisoning.
I grew up a pool kid. I was on the swim team at Weston pool. We had swim meets on Saturday against the other city pools in the area. It was a cool, really easy going sort of competition thing. I took swim lessons at the Y and outdoor pools. Later on I taught swim lessons at them all.
I was in the first class of lifeguards to work the Wausau Triathlon when it was started. One of my proudest moments was being selected by Sue Lewitzke to be on the first buoy, because I had been around awhile, and I had the biggest voice.
That brings us to Sue Lewitzke, and I know I am getting off of pools here, but it is just fine. I am part of a generation of Wausau aquatics that was raised by Sue. First Sue taught me to swim, then she coached me on the Green Dolphins, then she taught me to be a lifeguard, then a swim instructor, then she eventually taught me to teach others how to be lifeguards and swim instructors. Guys like me, Peter Rotter, Ted Tautges all came out of the aquatics of the YMCA. Even though I do not see those guys often, this shared experience is always there.
I remember one winter when Sue pulled Ted and I aside and asked us to pick what we wanted to teach. You see, the Y had some short specialized classes. One was safe diving, the other was water dance. I am not making this up. I chose safe diving, though if I remember right I think we did it with a coin flip, and Ted lost.
I remember the patrons of the RS Pool, like Meghan, a young girl who was at the pool everyday. She was sort of a mascot. She was there everyday, all day. She was about 8 or so, and was so familiar with all of us that we missed her when she was not there.
Then there was some guy named Rudy. His real name might have been John Rudant, but I have no idea. He would come for family swim, and swim laps for an hour. I never saw such a great flip turn in my life. He was a college swimmer in his mid 20s and was just awesome. I wear my watch on my right wrist to this day trying to be like that dude.
I remember turning the pool green, or rather the pool turning green. One of the wells in Rothschild that fed the pool had a high iron content, and that iron reacted with the soda ash and other chemicals in the water, and it would turn the water green. People would not even mind. They knew it happened, and that it did not mean anything.
I remember the prank war with the Wausau pools that escalated way out of control.
I remember learning way too much about pool chemistry, and then taking a pool managers class in college and learning even more.
Basically, I remember my whole entire life being about pools. So while that is rambling, and a bit self indulgent as far as writing goes, it gets me to this point.
We need community centers. We need places to be around each other, to interact, to build relationships, and for young kids, the pool is that place sometimes. And it is worthy of our commitment and our resource dollars.
Young people swimming in the pool are not from a particular class, or creed, or color — they are simply kids playing Marco Polo, learning to do a proper can opener or cannon ball, or just swimming next to someone. Parents are nothing more than parents at a pool, happy to swim and swim with their kids and the kids around them.
My favorite occurrence at the pool is communal parenting for safety. Kids are swimming, and a young swimmer happens to be out there in water over their head, and inevitably a parent would help that kid, even if that kid was not their kid. Parents become community lifeguards, and parent all the kids in their sphere of influence.
For me, there might be nothing more inspiring than listening to the voices and laughter at the pool. It is a special sort of roar of children and innocence and just plain fun. Kids are socialized in these places, and they are important.
I get it though, money is tight. You do not want your taxes to pay for anything that it should not go to (expect a blog post about money in the next couple of days). And this conversation is dominated by voices calling for fiscal responsibility.
To those voices I defiantly, and with self knowledge of what this means, I say, SHUT UP. Pools are about kids. If you would just shut up for one moment, realize that pools cost you pennies and create community for children, maybe you could get past your own nose for just one moment.
Sure, 6 million sounds like a lot. But, I have a lifetime of memories from the pool, and so do hundreds of thousands of young people around here. Sue Lewitzke changed my life, just like Stacy Gering, Patty Schneider and Joel Mensch.
How about you just realize that no one is trying to pull a fast one on you, and instead they want to make pools for the community and parents, and your pennies make it possible for great things to happen. So I get that you do not want to pay anything, that times are tight for you and yours, but I think pools create community.
And community creates the future we will all live in.
Good stuff. Here’s something I said in 2008 about our pools, before suggesting some changes in the way that we operate them:
“We need to do a better job of figuring out what the whole experience could really be about and it isn’t rocket science. All you have to do is go to other pools in other places and take a look around. Check the water temperature. Notice the plantings and trees, chairs and shade, drinks, snacks and music. It’s like going to the beach, only it’s a pool. Most of the people never get in the water, but they like the environment so they spend time there because there are amenities and services in place to support it. There are people of all ages.”
Here’s something that was part of the July 15 editorial in the Herald that tells you how looking at things differently and making a few low-cost, positive changes worked out:
“A decade ago, attendance at the pools seemed to be in decline. At a low point in 2005, the pools records only 25,500 visits all summer.
But that trend has been reversed, and in recent years the direction is unmistakable: Wausau’s neighborhood pools are becoming more popular.
In 2011, pool attendance reached 35,799, which was an increase of nearly 2,000 visits from the year before.
It’s too early in the season to have good statistics for 2012, but based simply on the thermometer readings so far this summer, we would not be surprised if this year continues that trend and tops last year’s total.
Meanwhile, the city has more than halved the cost of the service. In 2008, it spent $150,000 to operate its pools. In 2011, that number was down to $70,000.”
What’s really interesting about that net cost is the part of achieving involved substantially reducing the price of admission and then increasing the revenue stream through greater attendance and offering concessions. How many other things in this realm can we say that we actually improved, while cutting the net cost by more than half?
So I couldn’t agree with you more about paying attention to VALUE while we look at costs and examine whether our money is being well-spent. You’re also right about the whole community aspect of these things and its role in creating the future we will all live in. Thanks for saying it.
Dino, I couldn’t agree with you more. While I don’t go to pools much anymore, I can’t imagine what life would be like if I hadn’t had pools when I was growing up. Learning to swim in a lake or water hole is very different. I used to say “Swim lessons will teach you ‘how’ to swim, swim teams (clubs) will teach you ‘to’ swim.” There is a huge difference and that difference defines me and is a huge part of who I am today.
It has been a big part of how I gave back to the community in teaching swim lessons, lifeguarding, coaching and doing safety work for our kayak course and it has been the source of numerous personal accomplishments, like the 5 mile open water Minnetonka challenge, triathlons, massive distances of Butterfly back in the day and generally has given me a level of comfort around water that I could never have had without swim team and swim club. Swim team/swim club doesn’t happen in lakes, rivers or natural swimming holes, which I am not knocking, I love them, but to become proficient enough to really enjoy all of this, you need some pools where you can safely learn to swim and to swim distances. Where no matter how far you are swimming there is safety and a lifeguard, never more than 25 yards away. Pools provide that and nothing else really comes close.
Of course I would be terribly remiss if I did not mention that swimming has also given me my best friend, wife and life partner, Karen Rotter, who I met while we were both swimming 3 miles every morning at the YMCA.
Thanks for a great post Dino!
Pretty smug article from a guy that doesn’t live in Wausau.
Just “shut up” and pay those higher taxes so that Dino can reminisce at your expense.
Oh, and advertise for free on your radio station, cause again, Dino doesn’t have to pay for it.
A theme he’s at least consistent with. You should pay for it cause he wants it.
Thanks Peter. I am glad you liked it.
To clarify, I do think the Wausau pools should probably get fixed up and continue to be a part of the community.
I’m just sick and tired of people that tell everyone else to shut up when their opinions differ or they ask questions such as “How are we going to pay for this” or ask for answers from their government. Asking how something will get paid for is a very important question that should not get tossed away with telling people to look past their own noses. In other words, insulting them just because they dared ask.
Dino nicely demonstrates the problem with a lot of things in society these days. It’s either his way or no way. Don’t ask questions, don’t compromise. Just do it his way right now or you are evil and you hate children, or local bands, or whatever cause he decides to freak out about this week. Not much different tactics than the pundits he rails against frequently.
That is awesome. ThisIsntNews agrees with what I had to say.
But, still took the time to insult me personally.
Great.
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Jim,
Do you think the numbers are significant in driving this discussion? We maintain parks, and do not have attendance figures there.
I am just wondering.
Personally, I do think the numbers play some level of relevance. I looked back at the blog post I did for CW back in 2009 about the pools.
In that post, I did state that I disagreed with those that thought that the pools needed to generate a profit. If pools were a profitable venture, the market would provide them and they would not need to be a government service.
Basically, when you spend a lot of money on things that a lot of people derive benefit from, there is a pretty good level of support (police protection for example).
When you spend a little bit of money on something that a lot of people derive benefit from, that is basically a no-brainer (parks).
The public outrage comes when money is spent on something that few benefit from. When only a little money is spent on something where few benefit, you have people objecting, but they are just a few voices out of many (the downtown airport?)
The reason why pools were a big deal when I did my blog post in 2009, is because it was something a lot of money was going to be needed for something where there was a perception only a few would benefit. It is those cases where you tend to have organized resistance.
However, with some changes that were made, they are seeing more use. Are they seeing enough use to justify the amount of money that is needed? That is a matter of opinion.
As I stated in that “Use it or lose it” post from 2009, if the changes (lower admissions, addition of concessions, etc) did not result in an increase of use (or worse yet, the trend of decreasing use continued), the pools would be all but dead. The fact that those changes appears to have improved the number of people using the pool, and thusly making this a more important city ammenity, puts them back on the table for their continuation.