Added by Bob Ruhe on 11/30/1999
I have far too many memories of Western Springs but will share just one for now. I remember spending virtually every summer day of my youth at the WSSC pool. Back then the worst words a kid my age could ever hear came from Max Armer, ?Alright, let?s have a 15 minute adult break! Children and teenagers out of the pool? adults only for fifteen minutes!?
Our eyes would roll around in our heads in agony. Adult break! Fifteen minutes!? Aw man! We?ll be DRY by then!
The lifeguards would stand up in their chairs whistling any of us slow pokes to hurry it up and get outta the pool. Then we?d do our time sitting around the pool while maybe three or four moms would take their babies into the pool for some peaceful swimming. Some of us would even dare to slink back in to cool off. But you had to be fast.
Those 15 minute adult breaks lasted for ever.
But just before our brains would finish baking off inside our heads, Max would offer relief, ?Guards up! Guards take your stations!? If he was feeling particularly chipper that day ? meaning if the Cubs were winning ? he?d play it up a bit. ?The enemy has been sighted! Guards take your battle stations!? Droves of kids would line up all around the pool and at the diving boards waiting for that signal ? when would it come? Are they gonna say it? Sometime this century, MAX! Wait, lookit those little kids by the office. Yep here it comes!
(Max would sometimes let a bunch of the little kids scream the magic words into the microphone):
Bombs Away!
And about ten thousand little kids would kersplash back into the pool and the summer would continue.
I call those the Salad Days and I never realized just how much I would miss them.
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