It’s been a hot summer in Paris, too hot for me and too hot for the city itself. There have been breakdowns in the metro, and above ground and below, in a city where air conditioning is the exception, not the rule, the dehydrated and those suffering from heatstroke have been dropping like flies.
It’s been noisy too. Windows are open, an invitation to the slightest breeze to come inside, whereas it’s most often noise that rushes in: sirens blaring, as the Parisian SAMU, the city’s emergency medical squad, rushes to the most urgent “hot spots;” jackhammers hammering (summer is the time for repairing pipelines and laying cable, which means reducing sidewalks to rubble and stirring up lots of dust); garbage trucks grinding as they pick up and compact waste. As I write, a motorized street-cleaner sounds like it’s tearing up the street, not washing it.
Lots of people noise too, and human contact, more than most of us want. In the metro, it’s impossible to avoid the moist touch of other bodies; packed metro cars feel like a sauna tainted with the faint odor of disinfectant. Above ground, there are just too many of us, in the streets, in city parks, or along the banks of the Seine.
We Parisians are grouchy. Tourists are turning “the number one tourist destination in the world” into a giant amusement park. If we didn’t need them so much, well, we’d tell them to all go home. That would bring the city’s population down by a million at least and surely, after such a mass exodus, temperatures would drop at bit.
Yet, there are strange compensations for those of us weathering the city heat. I’ve been seeking relief in art museums, where masterpieces require cool, dry air. In that way, I’ve been to see some of the biggest shows of the season, such as the first French retrospective of the Spanish painter Velazquez. In the spring, crowds stood in line for hours. A few days before the show’s closing, I strolled in and admired the paintings among a sparse, cool crowd.
Movie theaters could be another option. They too are air-conditioned, but in the newsletter put out by the city hall of the 19th arrondissement where I live, I learned that bedbugs are on the rampage and those upholstered seats in not-so-clean theaters seem like the perfect place for a surprise attack.
Yes, it’s a hot time, this summer in the city, and constantly that 1966 hit by the Lovin’ Spoonful has been running through my head: “Hot time, summer in the city, back of my neck getting dirty and gritty… All around people looking half-dead, walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.” As for how I’m feeling about summer in the city this year, those lyrics sum it up.
They also bring back a lot of memories of summers not spent in the city, of Schuylkill County in the summertime, and I’m at the point now in life where my memories go way back. To escape the city heat, I slip into an imaginary world of moist heat, bright green, the “different world” of summer nights, and swimming pools.
I grew up on Greenwood Hill and back in those days, we children walked everywhere. Nobody talked about carpooling, there was little or no supervision. Screen doors opened, children ran outside, and they returned home when they were thirsty (our favorite drink, sugary Kool-Aid), hungry or tired.
With my best friends Donna and David Newton, I walked almost every day to the East Side Pool. We avoided main streets and sidewalks, preferring alley ways. Walking to the pool, we took our time, stopping to pop tar bubbles with our bare feet or to suck the nectar from flowers growing on honey suckle vines.
I remember the East Side Pool before it had a filtration system. Water from the dam at Agricultural Park rushed down a chute into the pool, which was actually more like a pond whose waters were constantly refreshed from the dam above. Sometimes the pool was drained, cleaned and refilled. In times of drought, it had to be closed. I remember green algae forming on the surface, but that did not stop me from jumping in.
Next to the pool in a park shaded by pine trees, there was a small playground and a refreshment stand with a juke box. After swimming, before walking back home, we would sit on the swings and watch couples jitterbug. That was a long time ago and today health officials would close that pool down in no time flat.
In 1966, during the same summer the Lovin’ Spoonful were singing “Summer in the City,” the JFK Pool of Pottsville officially opened, a magnificent day for us all. The swimming pool was huge and beautiful! We were awed by the diving area, with low-dive, high-dive, and the daunting tower from which only the bravest dared to dive. I liked to jump off and once I decided to jump backwards, in the direction of the pool wall. When I came up, my body rubbed against it. A couple of inches more and I would have landed outside the pool, on the cement, and most likely died.
During those last summers of the 1960’s, we pretty much lived at the swimming pool. We dined on greasy pizza and fries and licked popsicles to quench our thirst. In the morning, there were swimming lessons and swim team, in the afternoon, fun with friends, and in the evenings, splash parties and water ballet, directed by Mrs. Willard whose husband was the manager of the pool for many years.
Those water ballets were impressive and we had some local rivals of Esther Williams. Two of them were my good friends. I remember a ballet on a Polynesian theme, where Patty Kenna, poised on the edge, arms spread wide, gracefully dove from the tower, hardly making a splash when she hit the water. Another talented water ballerina was Molly Gallagher. I was there as a spectator because I just couldn’t swim as well as my friends.
Writing about those long-ago summers, I’ve managed to cool down and forget the city heat. The back of my neck no longer feels dirty or gritty and another 1966 hit has eased its way into my brain. Now I’m “lazing on a sunny afternoon” with the Kinks, “in a summertime,” back in Schuylkill County, sitting at the edge of the pool, my feet in the water, an ice-cold Yuengling in my hand.
