Swimming IN school

[jbeegoode]

Hot springs are generally set to drain themselves regularly. They overflow and the hot water is often a lousy place for bacteria to live. Commercial ones get completely drained, scraped and cleaned.

The ones I go to...this weekend, HALLALOOYA!...keep well themselves.

There are some critters that live in some of them naturally, not because humans are in there. These critters are bad for humans. There has been problems with some in New Mexico.

Anyway, good comeback line about the swim suits. Then, again, suits trap and create bacteria.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

I still think that the most incredible thing about nude swimming in school is that a high school would have a swimming pool. I live in a fairly affluent county in Northern Virginia and no high school has a swimming pool and also, there is only one YMCA for a population of over a million people. There are 22 high schools. Any school related swimming takes place in county rec centers.

[Davie]

Sadly most schools do not provide swimming lessons although I'm told its in the national curriculum. Kids need to be able to swim both for exercise and safety reasons. Most changing rooms seem to be cubicles although were we swim as a naturist club the difference between the men and women's is fairly marginal. Both are open plan except the ladies has a couple of cubicles for changing in. The showers are in cubicles on the women's side unlike the men's open ones.

The only other difference is the toilet arrangements. If the women choose to use the men's showers which are better, not only open but hotter and more powerful they walk past the urinals. It's always the men who are more concerned about this than the women, but its never a problem.

Last time I went to a major sized pool with a "changing village" (what a strange name) I headed for the unoccupied family room where I have my own shower and could use them naked.

Davie 

[BlueTrain]

I agree that kids should learn to swim but it shouldn't be necessary for exercise. I think they should learn to swim as early as possible, though, and it is highly unlikely that a grade school would have a pool. I learned to swim in the one and only public pool in my small hometown and there was no where else to swim within walking distance. There are lots of private pools where I live now but they're only open during the summer. There is a YMCA but only one in a county with a million population. There is a major river here and there are cases of drownings every year. There are some falls on the river where some invariably occur, mostly connected with boating. And of course there is the occasional body found in the river under mysterious circumstances.

Anyway, high school is too late for learning to swim. Schools do offer driving classes, though, but by the time they're old enough to get their learner's permit, they've sat beside and watched another driver, usually their parents, for the previous fifteen years and picked up all their bad habits.

[Greenbare Woods]

I agree that kids should learn to swim but it shouldn't be necessary for exercise. I think they should learn to swim as early as possible, though, and it is highly unlikely that a grade school would have a pool. I learned to swim in the one and only public pool in my small hometown and there was no where else to swim within walking distance.

I agree with you here.  We learned to swim at the YMCA at about age 6-8, swimming naked.   The town of 14,000 had a YMCA but nothing equal for girls and women.  A big part of YMCAs in those years was the hotel like rooms on the upper floors.  Young men who were traveling cheap or needed to get out of their parent's home could stay at the YMCA in most American cities.  After 1960 the "equal rights" women were making loud noises and starting to take over most men's clubs. 

NONE of the schools had a swimming pool.  None of the schools in Washington State has a swimming pool as far as I know.  Having exercise for children is not on their radar.  Most schools have cancelled recess.  They don't allow children to walk to school and back.  When boys get bored sitting still hour after hour they are drugged into submission.   Its a mess. 

I now live in a town of around 20,000.  Its a college town and the only swimming pool in town is at the college, for college students only.  Children and other adults have no place to swim.    In Spokane, about 25 miles away, they have some outdoor swimming pools that are only open in summer.   They  also have a YWCA that took over the YMCA some decades ago.  I don't know anyone who ever goes there. 

[jbeegoode]

Tucson, Arizona, population a million give or take central and suburbs.

Each high school has access to a community pool for swimming competition. There are 18 public pools in the city limits. There are numerous health clubs with pools for workout. Private back yard pools are frequent, try google satellite maps to see them all. There are numerous resorts and golf and racket clubs, each with a pool.

I have two friends with pools to skinnydip in. Mira Vista has a great facility, but $30 per day, if you don't pony up hundreds each year for membership. We are going two hours drive to the hot springs with its double Olympic sized 85 degree mineral bath tomorrow!

There are waters in Sabino Canyon to swim at night. Redington Pass has water enough to swim some of the time.

I'm sure Tucson is right up there with the rest of Arizona.
http://ktar.com/story/500079/6-arizona-cities-among-nations-highest-for-homes-with-backyard-pools/

WE LIVE IN A DESERT!

There are many programs teaching kids to swim, public and private. YMCA is very popular. Water Aerobics is a big deal. Many suburban communities have private pools for the subdivision. Any hotel motel is dead without a pool. Most apartment complexes have a pool....

AND WE LIVE IN A DESERT!

We have 300 days of sunshine each year. The rest is partly sunny, a few grey. The temperatures are warm enough most of the year. Most private pools are not heated, and people are sissys for cold. When it is over 100F and the waters are warm, naturally, people start to think about cooler water. When you spend time in a pool and then get out into 105F, it is cold!

I guess it is that I've been here so long and spoiled by this, that your tales sound like the deprived third world. My mind there is a thought,"Really!?"

Jbee

[John P]

In northern states, I think high schools have pools if they're in affluent communities, because people expect it and they're willing to see their tax money spent that way. The school I went to in suburban Pittsburgh did have a pool, but even back in the late 60s we didn't swim nude (and swim classes were part of gym class, boys or girls only). You didn't bring your own swimsuit: they issued a new one each time you swam, and they were some kind of woolly material, slightly scratchy to the touch, but not really uncomfortable. The fit was fairly tight. After your swim session, you'd dump the wet suit in a barrel, and I assume they were laundered somehow. I copied the picture of the swim team out of my class-of-69 yearbook, and as far as I can tell, the boys there are wearing the same sort of suit:


By the way, I was a little surprised when I looked in the yearbook when I saw that there was no girls' swim team. But then I remembered that girls' team sports were pretty limited until "Title IX" was passed, and I went and looked that up, and found that it was "Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972". So the class of '69 didn't get the benefit of that. (We don't need to have an irrelevant political discussion about this.)

On the other hand, I asked my wife if when her kids were growing up, there was a pool at their school, in a rather less wealthy area than I was in. She said no, though there were swim teams. They'd go to a local technical school for practice and meets, a place that wasn't funded by any particular town. So it seems as if some schools have pools and some don't, and I think money has a lot to do with it.

[BlueTrain]

Whether a school has or had a pool might have as much to do with public interest as anything. Even the smallest school will have a gym for basketball. In grade schools, they're usually termed multipurpose rooms, because they are. In the grade school I attended, it even had a nice stage with curtains and everything. It had a very large outdoor playing field but no parking lot. In fact, only the newest school, built in 1955, had a parking lot.

The swimsuits in the photo look like what used to be issued in the U.S. Navy. I also recall that in college, just like you described, you dropped off your gym outfit after class. The following week, you picked up your outfit before class and it would be warm, which meant that it had just been washed. Don't remember much else from the class, including whether or not we took showers.

[jbeegoode]

We were issued swimsuits in Michigan for the gym classes in the school pool. Unless the laundry messed up delivery and we had to swim nude. No coed classes. Girls swimming was equal. Big room showers, locker rooms were mandatory.

Being seen nude was a man up thing for the boys, even in junior high when kids don't develop at the same rate.

My school was new my junior year, when I moved to Tucson. All the facilities like the pool didn't come until I graduated in 1970 and it became a joint deal with the local municipality. Swim team had to ship miles down into town to the other high school each day.

Jbee