Fun Summer Days In The Pool In Ohio

It's hard to believe that it is already 2012. Where in the heck did 2011 go so fast? I know it is just January but it will be summer before we know it - hopefully sooner rather than later since I LOVE summer and the warm weather.

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, we generally opened our pools around Memorial Day. We absolutely could not wait to get in that pool! Of course the water came directly from Lake Erie and was still quite cold in May but that did not matter to us in the least - we were in the pool as soon as it was filled.

Just plain swimming in the pool would be fun for a few weeks but then we would start to look to add toys and games to make swimming more fun. We would always start by playing among ourselves fun swimming pool games like water tag or Marco Polo. Of course after a few days, this would not be as much fun as it was in the beginning so we would start to look for toys to play within the swimming pool.

Our family did not have a lot of money so we needed to be very creative with pool toys. One of the best "pool" toys ever will always be a simple handful of pennies. A penny is easy to spot on the bottom of a swimming pool most of the time unless the pool liner is extremely dark or dirty. We would toss ten pennies or so into the pool and take turns diving for them. First we would just dive but then we needed to make it a bit more difficult so we would time the diver to see who could dive and retrieve the quickest or who could remain underwater the longest picking the pennies up. Of course the diver had to hide their eyes while we were putting the pennies into the pool and you better believe we tried to make it as difficult as possible for a diver to easily retrieve the pennies! We would have them sitting against one side of the pool and the next penny had to be in the middle of the pool. Anything to make it harder for the diver to quickly dive and retrieve those pennies!

After the pennies started getting old, our parents would usually splurge on diving rings or sticks for us to play with. We would play the same games as we did with the pennies but it would seem more exciting because they were new. Today there are glow in the dark dive shark rings that let kids play day - or night! If your kids are not afraid to swim at night, just playing with these dive shark rings during the day is enough to give them lasting glow at night too.

And who could forget the tire truck inner tubes? Every summer someone in the neighborhood would get their hands on tire truck inner tubes and we would be set for days with swimming pool fun. We would tie the inner tubes together and one of us would pull the others sitting on their tubes around the pool. Not only was it fun being pulled, but the resulting whirlpool would keep you going for sometime with no extra work!

We would use those inner tubes in so many different fun ways - diving through the middle, two or more of us sitting on the tube while another of us pulled us around the pool. These inner tubes were also the first pool basketball hoops - all we needed was a simple beach ball and we could play basketball for hours.

Things are different today than they were in the 60's and 70's when we were growing up but one thing remains the same. Cleveland has four season - Fall, Winter, Spring and wonderfully warm sunny Summer days - at least most summers.