I have never in my life had a pool until now. My parents never bought a house with a pool and we did buy several houses when I was growing up. I think fewer houses had pools back then, even in sunny southern California. Also, we didn’t have quite the kind of disposable income that lead to pool installation. Add to that the fact that my mother didn’t know how to swim and I think you can see that there wasn’t any extreme motivation on their part to get a pool.
When Hubby and I were looking to buy our first house I refused to get one with a pool. I knew children were coming in the not too distant future and I didn’t want that safety hazard in my back yard. Motherhood is hard enough without trying to make sure my children weren’t drowning. However, when we looked for a new house when the kids were older I took “no pool” off the list of requirements. People in southern California put in pools. To eliminate houses with pools would have really limited us, much more than “room for multiple cars” or “a view” did. Both of those were on Hubby’s list. I wanted a separate living room and family room in the hopes that the visible one could stay clean while the less visible one got messy. We both got what we wanted, and it came with a pool.
So, being a pool owner for the first time in my life has been….interesting. I have learned a few things:
1. No one in the family swims that much. Even in the hot months, it is not like that pool is getting a work out every day. Which justifies, in my mind, never spending the money to put one in at the old house.
2. Our pool is like a big water hazard for the golf course next door. There are three balls in the bottom of the pool right now.
3. On a hot day a pool can turn green in no time flat. And that will happen the day before people are going to come over and swim.
4. A pool just on the cusp of becoming a swamp will have a lovely turquoise color that first makes you go “ooohhh” and then makes you go “eeewww!”
5. Gophers will fall in your pool during the night and drown. While not the most effective gopher control method, one less gopher is one less gopher.
6. My Hubby never had to ask whose job it is to get the dead gophers out of the pool. That is why I married him. He is a smart man!
Today’s post was inspired in some weird, convoluted way, by today’s blog post by “Never Done It That Way Before.” You can read her post here: http://neverthatway.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/nothing-says-happy-easter-like-a-dead-cat-in-your-driveway/
Woman in the Middle 
When I was a little girl, my mom wanted my brothers and I to learn how to swim because she didn’t know how and was afraid to learn due to a prank pulled on her in a pool when she was a kid. Whew! That was a long sentence. Anyway, we didn’t have to worry about putting in a pool because we just went for a swim at our neighbors’ home. They managed to keep the gophers out by using a pool cover. They also managed to keep the kids safe by building a chain linked fence around it.
YEs, my mother was determined as well to make sure I knew how to swim. She enrolled my in swim lessons for years. She didn’t know how to swim because she grew up out in the country where people didn’t have crazy things like pools and the ponds weren’t deep enough to learn to swim in. My kids swam for years in a neighbor’s pool as well.
Always wanted a pool but I figured (as you found out) that we wouldn’t use it. Now I have a pond which I love. Tons of wildlife use it (no gophers fortunately) and it’s fun to watch.