The Orange Plunge

After moving to Wenatchee, there were few opportunities for swimming. We drove down to see the town pool when we first moved there and discovered that it had been closed because it took its water straight out of the Columbia River, and it was no longer sanitary. The lake water at our various camping places was always very cold. Perhaps we were invited to swim once at the home of one of my father’s colleagues, but the memory is unclear. Mostly I remember that that the fatuous wife and mother (of a fat boring baby) promised us “Boston Coolers” all day while we sat around bored – there must not have been a swimming pool, right? – and finally she prepared the highly touted treat, and it was just an ordinary root beer float. Not that there is anything wrong with a root beer float but after her build up to this strange and exotic dessert, I expected something more spectacular. What did I want? Sparkers and ruby dust? But anyhow, swimming was a bust in Wenatchee.

​We moved to Orange, California in 1964, the summer before eighth grade. At that time, Orange was not part of the great wasteland that is present day Orange County; it was in individual city (town?) that was bordered by orange groves and undeveloped chaparral with no other municipalities but for Santa Ana to the south. We had one car which my father used to drive to work at Santa Ana Junior College, later Santiago Community College. I walked everywhere. I rarely took my/our bicycle out of the neighborhood. I think that the one speed bike that was the delight of my Wenatchee days was just too slow and clunky; or perhaps it was that there was a possibility that it would be stolen. Walking was something I did with friends, and I had many. Many children living near me was one of the advantages of Primrose Drive from 1964 to 1970.

I went with my family to the Orange Plunge frequently when I lived with my parents in Orange. The Plunge was the centerpiece of W.O. Hart Park, which everyone pronounced Wo (woah) Hart. In the beginning, my mother would be there. My father would drive us over and swim for about ten minutes and then disappear, probably to a nearby bar, but it was never discussed. My mother would swim with us for a while, coaching us on our swimming a bit and showing us tricks like swimming underwater and turning somersaults underwater. Then she would lay on a towel or take the baby, which at this point was Emily, outside to a free wading pool. The Primrose house had no air-conditioning, so swimming was quite a relief on those hot summer days.

Later, Jayne and I, and perhaps other siblings, would walk all the way to the plunge and spend a hard-earned quarter for entrance to paradise. I was not a good swimmer still, and for the first couple years I swam about exclusively in the shallow end. I would sometimes work my way up the side of the pool, swimming a ways and then grabbing the edge. The lifeguards didn’t like it and I would be busted. They wanted to see me swim all the way across the pool without touching down. Eventually, I could perform this feat, slowly dog-paddling the width of the Olympic sized pool. Suddenly, I was permitted to swim in “the deep end.” What a lovely sound that was – it was a major accomplishment in my swimming progress. 

I was, by this time, going to the pool with my friends plus my sister Jayne. We shared friends, or as she like to put it, I “stole” her friends. Perhaps this is true. The only child my age in the neighborhood was a boy and if there were any slightly older girls, I do not remember them at all. Each time we went to the plunge, we would dare one another to go off the high dive; once I had tried it, I always did one jump and rarely, a dive, on every occasion that I visited the pool. Once a day was plenty; it usually hurt some part of my body, whichever stray part was sticking out or hit the water first. Also problematic was the long swim over to the ladder. But it was a symbol of courage and daring do. Just as it scared me, it always made me proud, because it frightened me and I still did it.
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I much preferred the regular diving boards but again I was constantly in trouble with the lifeguards. One time I was swimming too near where the divers entered the water. I learned a rule that one could not swim around on the side of the ladder closer to the diving boards. But my big crime was diving towards the edge of the pool, swimming straight at it, and then grabbing the edge of the pool and working my way down to the ladder. I had to prove that I could swim the width of the pool again and again. I finally learned how to just dive straight off the board and swim out as far as the ladder and then cut over.

I also learned how dive making a neat hole in the water, splitting it with my hands, and descending deep into the blue, finally swimming up when I was running out of breath. Then I would invoke my shabby dog paddle and make my way to the ladder. But the power of diving deep, of descending into the opaque abyss, was tantalizing and refreshing. Popping out onto the surface into the air was leaving a strange world of unreality and quiet into a cacophonous party, jagged sounds interrupted by splashing water and shrieks. The other girls like to lay on their towels and “sun-bathe” but I spent nearly every minute in the cool oasis, swimming underwater with my eyes open like a bigger girl, suffering the chlorine sting for the silence and the solitude.

​Dr. P-J
​10/25/22

Link to Non-Fiction -- Memoirs -- Swimming Through My Life