pool days

These last couple of days have felt like summer.
The summers of my childhood.
After swim lessons we have packed the boys into the van,
damp and smelling of chlorine, with bright eyes and pruny skin
and headed up to Scott's Mom's place.
She and my father-in-law, Dave,
live in a condo that has a fantastic pool.
They have given us the green light to come up as often as
we can this summer and we are taking them up on it.
Pink cheeked and brown shouldered,
the boys flee the van and head straight for the deep end.
Except for Addie.
Still learning to swim, he skirts the pool,
clinging to the side, egg beater-ing the water with his legs.
Yesterday, the Bondonno clan met us there.
Scott's sister, Cheri, my brother-in-law Kevin and their 3 kids,
Robert, Katherine and Brian swarmed the pool with us.
A pool full of cousins can only mean one thing...summer.
I remember swimming down at Uncle Carl and Aunt Joanna's house
the pool being full of Blakeleys, Dowdys, Inmans and Foths.
There were over 20 of us...I'm not sure if we were all in the pool
at one time but it felt like it.
We laid on the warm wood deck, ate popsicles
and drank up Uncle Carl's Diet Pepsi.
(Sorry, Uncle Carl, we owe you!)
The Modesto sun beat down on us as we swam and shouted.
The air smelled like dirt and ripe peaches.
And there was always a promise in the air of homemade ice cream
and the hope of staying up late, whispering under the covers,
waiting for the next day of summer to spill over us,
smiling on us in our fun.
And last night, as we feasted on corn chips and Chinese food
around a poolside table,
yells of Marco and Polo rippled out across the pool.
Shrieks of being chased and caught filled the air,
and it felt like coming home.
Now if only someone would make some homemade peach ice cream
we'd be set.