My Daddy Built a Pool — Small Stories of a Big God

Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 GNT

When I was barely 18 months old, my daddy decided he and my mother needed to build a pool. I marvel at this. It was in the 1950s.

He had married Pauline, a widow-woman, with two little girls, and Pauline had just completed building her very own brick ranch on the three acres her Papa had given her – not too far from the dairy farm where she had grown up. Now, from what I hear, Joe was quite the handsome bachelor, with his pale blue eyes and dark hair. Pauline had told him to not bother coming around unless he was serious (she had heard rumors of the divorcee he was also seeing) and the next thing you know there was a March wedding in the living room of Pauline’s new house. Ann and Kathy, nine and seven, were elated.

Joe taught Kathy how to ride a bike. Georgia was born. And Joe built a swimming pool. The pool was in-ground, measured 20x40, was nine feet deep, and boasted a diving board (which Joe made). It also had a 'pool house'; consisting of a bathroom and two dressing rooms and a 'chemical room' for the chlorine and the pool vacuum. It was nothing fancy – nothing like you see in Better Homes and Gardens today. The pool house consisted of a frame of 2’x4’s stained Redwood, sitting on bricks on a concrete pad, with a corrugated metal roof.

But, let me tell you, that pool was the wonder and joy of the neighborhood. Can I get a count of the children who learned how to swim there?

All this is to say, sixty-something years later, my husband and I decided to tear down the children's treehouse here in Atlanta since a storm had taken out the tree a few years ago - and seriously, it had become a true eyesore. When I posted the picture of what Jeff had created from the remaining deck and salvaged walls, Nancy, the younger sister, immediately replied back – “Oh – it looks like the pool house had a baby,” And I had to concede, “Well, my goodness, she is exactly right.”

My ‘writing shed’ that found its origins in the leftovers of the old treehouse, has the same slanted shed roof. Corrugated metal. And the 2x4 framed walls are painted with the same black that Nancy and I had chosen to update the redwood stain of the pool house. My golly. I am still sitting here in the pool house – with no pool – 160 miles away from my Greenville hometown.

Isn’t it amazing how the things that brought you comfort and gave you a sense of stability and peace in your childhood… resurface in your life years later? What does it mean?

For me, it means that the desires and careful considerations of my parents continue to thread their way forward into the future. My daddy chose something to build, to create, that would not be for him alone – but would give pleasure and enjoyment to his family. To his daughters and nieces and nephews and grandchildren to come. Something to share with the neighbors. And with his children’s friends. The list kept growing over the years.

Is that cool? I think it is.

And it makes me wonder. What am I building that will give such joy and pleasure to others? Something that will last for generations? It doesn’t have to be world peace. It may be, could be, something as oddly superficial, something as un-necessary and seemingly indulgent … as a swimming pool.

Question: What are you building with what you have been given?