Those Brigadoon memories of a long gone community that went by the name of Carrollton are beginning to evaporate. Those vivid, brilliant visions of summer nights and streetlights and wanderings and mischief and girls and boys and teenage desires, are fading from view like a TWA jetliner disappearing over the tree line. Further and further away, the familiar roar of those descending engines grow more faint with each passing year. Rooted in the self-absorbed foolishness of youth I took such permanent things for granted. Where could TWA possibly go other than endlessly around the world forever and ever? Standing out front looking up at the steady stream of incoming airplanes that never ceased, west to east, who would have imagined that it might all go away? Not just TWA, but Ozark Airlines, Eastern Airlines, Carrollton Elementary, Carrollton Oaks, St. Lawrence The Martyr, every home of every childhood friend, the very home and very driveway where I stood and watched those planes. All are gone now. The entire neighborhood erased and eliminated, the luckless victim of the frenzied slaughter known as airport expansion. Call it communicide. Families and neighbors uprooted and scattered for expansion that came only in the boondoggle embodiment of a massive unused runway, not in actual increased air traffic. In fact, air traffic has diminished considerably since the deed was perpetrated. Such is the shortsightedness of grandiose, ill-gotten ambitions.

You still may find traces of the past here and there. They left the strip malls and the streets; one or two crumbling parks were spared. Gene Love TV is still hanging around and while the bowling alley may no longer carry the name of Brunswick Carrollton, it has been well maintained and managed with care. Of course the pinball and arcade games of the waning 1970’s have long since been removed. So long Gorgar, farewell Black Night, sayonara Space Invaders.

It is the latter period of that decade, from the Bicentennial summer of 1976 and right on through to my sixteenth summer in 1981, that I remember most fondly when I recall my Carrollton years. It was a very specific and more restrained period in the American chronology, when I marveled at the thought of our nation reaching its 200th birthday. To an 11-year-old, it seemed at the time like an impossibly lengthy duration. Now that I’ve lived over a quarter of that accumulated span, it seems more a drop in the bucket. 

Carrollton was a wonderful neighborhood where most families lived comfortably but modestly. When we first moved in I couldn’t believe how many kids were telling me that their dads worked at McDonnell. I never questioned it but thought it kind of sad that so many grown men were flipping hamburgers. It didn’t take too long to have it clarified that the McDonnell they were all working for was McDonnell-Douglas. You couldn’t throw a rock in Carrollton without hitting some kid whose father worked in the aerospace industry. I marvel to think that some of the best and brightest engineers of their era – I’m talking now about the very men who helped put a man on the moon – lived in my relatively humble neighborhood. These were folks who might have had one new car in the driveway and might have put their kids through parochial school, but for all outward appearances lived no differently than most. Can you imagine, in the current age of one-uppance where everyone is self-entitled to live the millionaire lifestyle, living modestly in your means while everyday contributing to astronomical technological achievement? As I said, those were more restrained times. 

In-ground swimming pools were not by any means commonplace in Carrollton but there were two on my street, which was probably one and a half more than the average for that neighborhood. One of them belonged to a family with a brood of kids that my friends and I would sometimes take turns babysitting. That relationship resulted in us, on occasion, actually being invited to swim there. On other occasions one of us would make the late night bored suggestion of “pool hopping.” I don’t know that a pool has ever been more thrilling to me as on those summer nights when we shed our juvenile shirts and delinquent shoes and jumped in unannounced. I’m sure at the time we thought we were stealthy as ninjas but looking back the owners had to have known what we were up to and chose to tolerate us. If we were too rowdy and a light came on in the house, we would leap out so fast we’d be dry before we hit the ground. The other pool on the street belonged to a friend and was not only in-ground but indoors as well, which in my mind put them somewhere on par with The Rockefellers and Gettys. When we swam there in the dead of winter; well I felt like Richie Rich on payday.

As much as I enjoyed those nearby luxuries when they presented themselves, the real swimming, I mean the Memorial Day to Labor Day and everyday in between (except Mondays) swimming, was done at the Carrollton Pool. Of all my treasured Carrollton memories, the most irreplaceable is the memory of those summer days when we were young and fit and sun-kissed. Of all the senseless loss that was wrought on my hometown, the destruction of that wonderful oasis might be the most bitter blow. I can remember particular summer evenings from back then but every summer’s day played out the same. To single out one day would be like searching for a specific gallon of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool. Those memories are rippled and mingled and churned.

If the weather cooperated, on those very best of days, we would arrive early and stay late. It was usually Brian, Harry and myself, maybe Youngling too or Scott. We would assemble with our towels around our necks, pockets full of change and our laminated pool passes and set out up Gallatin and across the Woodford Way overpass, pausing briefly to try and get the big rigs on the highway below to blow their air horns by standing and gesturing enthusiastically, pumping our right fists up and down. We’d linger until we got a response and then we’d continue down Cellburne to our awaiting shimmering playground. The pool complex lay in a shallow valley at the bottom turn of Cellburne and there was a narrow path of steps off the sidewalk and down the hillside that emptied out into the parking lot. The car entrance was about another 100 yards further along but we only used it when we rode our bikes. Upon reaching the top of those steps we would already be scanning the pools with our keen, young eyes to catch a glimpse of who might have beaten us there.

Standing there, looking across a long and somewhat narrow parking lot, laid the Carrollton Club to the left with ball fields behind it. To the right was the pool complex. The Carrollton Club remains a bit of a mystery to me and I was only ever inside once or twice. It was the domain of the older generations, a general purpose, tavern, hangout and event rental space to the best of my recollection. Someone else will have to recount the merits and memories of that place, as I’m sure there are many. The pool was our destination and so we headed straight to the little office where you flashed your pool pass to some chlorine green haired Speedo jockey or on a good day the lovely Lisa T, a chestnut haired beauty from across the tracks (the other side of the tracks being the Hazelwood School District boundary line; we were on the Pattonville side). Once waved through, girls and boys separated to pass through chain link fence corridors and through the locker room/bathrooms, ladies to the left, and men to the right. We would hurry through that dimly lit space, crossing the rubber mats that elevated bare feet over mingling puddles of urine and tepid water, skipping the required shower and trying to look past the inevitable random naked old guy slowly changing in or out of his trunks. I’ll be damned if there wasn’t always a naked old guy taking his own sweet time to dress. Modesty is for the young; these guys couldn’t have cared less who witnessed their flagrant nudity. It’s only now that I realize that those old men were likely not serial exhibitionists but more probably the vaunted heroes of that greatest generation. When you have bunked with fellow soldiers and have driven a Sherman Tank or piloted a P-47 in combat; when you have stormed a beach under enemy fire, you certainly don’t give much of a hoot who sees your sagging naked body. You’re just glad your body is still intact. 

Upon navigating that musty gauntlet we would step out of the darkness into the blinding sunlight reflecting off clear blue water and wet concrete. Man it was heaven on earth laid out straight in front of you; the scent, the sound and the sight of it. To the left was the poolside entrance to the office, and then a seating area with tables and benches and the concessions stand. Directly in front was the huge family pool, the general-use pool where we spent most of our time. There was a slide directly outside the men’s locker room and a shallow entrance to the left of it. To the right and wrapping around the far corner was a roped off annex known simply as the deep end. If you kept to the right and walked round the building there was a separate smaller fenced in kiddie pool and beyond that a large lap pool designated for adults. Now standing back by the slide and looking straight across the family pool, there was yet another separate dive pool with both a low and a high dive. Circling the large family pool were rows of the most uncomfortable looking solid wood plank, institutional green, inclined loungers that looked like a misery to lay on but were deceptively comfortable, if you were lucky enough to score one. With beach towel spread over them, they were more than tolerable to lay out on. Though as often as not, we were content to spread our towels on the concrete deck over against the fence by the deep end.

Once our turf was established the day would proceed in a glorious haze of Nerf ball throwing, splash diving, frozen candy bars and girl watching. The smells of chlorine and Coppertone and baby oil with iodine are forever ingrained in my memory. To this day, I can’t hear certain songs that blared from the boom boxes of the time without them conjuring up those summer pool memories. Barracuda by Heart, Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas, Bloody Well Right by Supertramp, The Long Run by The Eagles, Fool In The Rain by Led Zeppelin, You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth by Meatloaf, More Than A Feeling by Boston, Leah by Donnie Iris, Another One Bites The Dust by Queen and so on and so on. They were all in heavy rotation and there was always at least one guy blasting K-SHE or KSLQ loudly on their radio. As overplayed as those tunes might have become they have never sounded better than when served fresh, poolside, with the sun baking your skin not bronze, but deep brown while the girl you currently have a crush on bounds about in a swimsuit. 

As for the swimsuits, I remember them all. Either I was hyper-pervy or the raging hormones of teenage boys just naturally sear an indelible impression on all of our youthful brains. There was the navy one piece with the white band around the top, there was the pink bikini with the fringe around the waist, there was the purple bikini and many more all worn on trim, lithe bodies of beautiful summer girls that on the best of days would inter-mingle with us boys in that awkward, passive-aggressive maneuvering dance that teenagers do so well. You would be so desperate for physical contact with the opposite sex with no clue how to initiate, that it would usually manifest in an awkward dunk, flip or chest deep piggyback ride. It didn’t take much at that age, contact with an elbow or thigh was enough to require a cool down period at the edge of the pool before being able to exit without fear of profound and pronounced embarrassment. Here’s to Darcy and Donna, Nancy and Lisa, Jackie and Ginger and a dozen others that time has erased from memory.

Now 40 years later, I can still recall the feel of blistering hot concrete as you crossed an open space from one pool to the next and the sweet relief that even a small puddle of hot water could provide along the way. I can recall the chalky, sweet and sour taste of the Lik-m-aid Fun Dip, the tartness of the Tangy Taffy and the cold on my front teeth from biting into a frozen solid Cap’n Crunch Strawberry Sundae Ice Cream Bar from the concession stand. I can still hear the din of the shrieks and shouts accompanied by the planes roaring overhead as they approached Lambert, mixing with the noise of the Semi Trucks rumbling along up the hill on Highway 270.

I remember the characters that populated the setting and certain incidents that left an impact. I remember the time when a jackass friend of my brother took it upon himself to dunk me with such repeated and violent ferocity that as an escape mechanism I went limp, face down in the water with such convincing showmanship that he panicked, pulled me up and upon realizing that I had tricked him, was so pissed off that he threatened to kick my ass proper. John W was a true 70’s stoner piece of work. He was Eddie Haskell meets Kelly Leak, adorned in an olive green speedo, Puka shell choker and Robert Plant curls, good for nothing but abuse and a dime bag. My choking last thought was, “Dude, you can drown me dead just so long as your Speedo dong doesn’t brush up me again.” I remember too Pat H, a kid with a decidedly loose screw who would now and again plant himself dead center in the most crowded pool, duck down so his open mouth was half above, half below the surface of the water and let out a minute-long primal scream while shaking his head violently from side to side. That’s entertainment!

I remember the time in the dive pool when a neighborhood kid was repeatedly doing splash dives from the high dive. Having been already warned by the lifeguard on duty, he pressed his luck and did one too many. Upon exiting the pool without whistle and without warning, the lifeguard, a well-known bruiser, punched him with such force as to completely shatter his cheekbone and collapse one side of his face. That’s taking pool rule enforcement to a whole new level. One guy walked around the rest of the summer, maybe the rest of the year with metal pins supporting his face and as far as I know the other guy wasn’t prosecuted for his aggressive life -“guarding”. How there wasn’t a pool closing lawsuit and press coverage of the event was probably due to the deft management of Mr. Enk.

Robert Enk, (and I only learned his first name many years later) was the manager, generalissimo and sheriff of the Carrollton Pool. We only ever knew him as Mr. Enk; at the time I would have spelled it Ink like we spoke it. He wore his silver haired authority with an aura. Always on watch while working on something, knee brace and hose in hand, he maintained order amidst the chaos of a couple of hundred screaming monkeys. When you heard his whistle blast you knew he meant business. If you were horsing around or out of line and he approached from behind, the hair on the back of your neck would stand up. The reality is we were kind of punks at the time and may have resented but always respected Mr. Enk’s stern gaze. He was the kind of adult that with the wisdom of age you look back on and recognize the outstanding service he provided not just to the community as a whole but to each individual kid he mentored, managed, disciplined or taught to swim. He died a few years back and it was only then that I realized he had been a teacher, a coach and a Marine. I don’t think they make men like that anymore but God knows the world needs them. I wish the Carrollton Pool still existed other than as a dumping ground for the Bridgeton Street Department. If it did there would be a plaque somewhere honoring his memory.

If you were lucky, you shared a similar experience at your own community pool but there was never another quite like Carrollton, because it was mine. It is a true shame that the Carrollton Pool is no more and that such a solid community was laid to waste but time marches on and change, for better or worse, is a fact of life. I’m 53 now and all I need do is look down at the sun-damage white spots on my forearms to be reminded of those halcyon days of youth. If you’re going to carry scars, carry ones that make you ruminate and smile. At this point in life I might give my freckled left arm for one more day at the pool with my mates and all of us in attendance in those long ago summers’ of ’78 and ’79.