on the cover / By Heidi Walters

Can’t Swim

Pool closures leave many Humboldt swimmers gasping for a solution. Not all is gloom, however.

(June 19, 2008)  Monday, 6:30 a.m.: Swimming instructor Jan Carroll sits on a table at one end of the 25-yard, six-lane Eureka High School pool going over paperwork. She’s been here half an hour already, shepherding swimmers in her Eureka Adult School class as they do their laps. Light filters through the swampy bank of windows on one side of the building. Each lane has one or two swimmers: Their kicking legs and swooshing arms make a rushing creek sound underscored by an odd, rhythmic thumping made by one swimmer with a foot that hits the water at a hard angle. Shhhhh — thunk! — shhhhh — thunk! — shhhhh — thunk! Overhead, in the echoey recesses of the shabby, peeling-paint ceiling, a fan whines like a trapped puppy, Arrarp! Arrarp! Arrarp!

At first this soundscape seems funny. Then poignant. And, finally, hypnotic.

GALLERY >

Jack Kemp hoists himself from the pool. He learned to swim in this very spot 35 years ago. He came back to it in 2006, and now starts three of his weekdays here.

“Now that I know it’s closing, I wish I’d started sooner,” he says, getting out. “It’s a great way to start the day.”

In the span of a few months, two of the four main, large public-access pools in the Eureka-Arcata area, where most of the county population lives, have shut down — the College of the Redwoods pool unexpectedly because of a major leak, and Humboldt State University’s prematurely before its replacement was finished. Hardest of all, a third pool, the venerable one at Eureka High School, has been targeted for closure — perhaps permanently — in August because of state-driven budget cuts.

The HSU and CR pool closures have caused increased traffic at the Eureka pool and the Arcata Community Pool, as well as at pools in privately run health clubs like Scotia’s Body Works (which leases it from Pacific Lumber Company, and in the future will lease the facility from Scotia School which is buying it), Eureka’s Cal Courts and Arcata’s HealthSPORT.

Not good for a place like this: an ocean pounding to the west, a half dozen rivers dashing through the mountains to the east, lagoons pooling at their intersections. A sprawling bay. Creeks and lakes not far off. The closure of one community access pool, let alone two or three, could cause ripples that mar the future: Some kid might not learn to swim and drown because of it. An instructor might lose work. A coach might leave for a job elsewhere. A disabled person might miss out on the awkwardness-vanishing magic of water. An adult with an injury might quit exercising, suffer pain, get laid off, grow fat. Many could simply miss their daily meditation.

Bleak. But, a partial rainbow arcs over this (excuse the expression) pool of tears: three new pools! True, two will be at private health clubs, with the attendant membership dues, initiation fees and high drop-in rates. And the third, at Humboldt State University, though shaping up to be a beauty with some unique instructional features, has a potentially annoying design quirk according to exacting critics.

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