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here i am in my beloved manitoba, looking sadly out a window at the destruction that lays about in rivers, where mom and dad golden had raised their nine children[43 years ago already!] ..the smile is hiding a hurting heart.
when we had reached the base this particular day, the little red car made a quick stop at one of the rusty hangers because bernie wanted to take a peek inside.
which was really an easy thing to do, considering there were so many broken windows!
after this, the little red car decided it was time to show us the swimming pool where the base kids used to spend their summers, swimming and having such great fun!
bernie parked the little red car and we decided to investigate.it really fills me with wonder that after the many years we were gone that i would be entering into this building.
the door of this little red shack had in its hay day welcomed hundreds of children during the hot summer days.
the entrance had no door! we could enter at our leisure and spend some time reminiscing..
oh!.here are the showers....in very bad shape!
this ladder is located at the "shallow end" of the pool where anyone who couldn't swim three lengths of the pool had to stay.
there was a pool of muddy water in the swimming pool. you can see at the end of the "deep" end of the pool, the low and high diving boards. i will never forget the day that the pool had to be cleared because some old guy did a belly flop off of the high diving board and he lost his choppers!..ha! the life guard had to dive in and search the bottom of the pool to find those false teeth...it was way too funny to us kids and way too embarrassing for that guy!
looking down from the deep end of the pool where the diving boards are, i can catch a glimpse of bernie.
oh the joy of the whole thing! i am hugging the big diving board! many the times i had canon balled from it...making a bigger splash then most of the boys, i must say..so much fun!
neither bernie, nor i took the chance to climb up the ladder!
as i looked down the length of the pool, i could almost picture all of us children when we took the odd break from swimming and laid on towels on the side to warm ourselves up in the hot sun.
alas...no more water flows
from this faucet!
life in the midst of death..this green bush seems to be very healthy.
we say good bye to "our" pool and head out.
one last glimpse into the open window.
the little red car parks itself at the hanger next door from the pool and we go in.
oh the joy of it...i catch another look at the swimming pool through another broken window.
i really don't think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel as far as this air force base is concerned!
oh..i forgot...i found this little red treasure on the grassy side of the swimming pool, and i felt so blessed to have seen this life, where once there were the lives and laughter of the air force kids!
