The Art of Summer Survival; The Pools of Oakdale

Summers

 Oakdale summers are hot summers; we are not talking eighty to ninety degree warms days punctuating otherwise pleasant, breezy, coastal weather. These are triple-digit summers, the kind we're later proud-to-brag-we-endured summers. Talking about the heat and cautioning others about it- and how we might avoid it - comes to replace 'take care' or 'have a good day.' Instead, we're left with: "stay outta the heat."

These are typically dry times, too, which is supposed to make the climate more bearable. All the same, the offending, imposing heat incinerates any possibility of real interaction with the outside environment. Taking walks involves covering every exposed part of skin, swiftly moving from dark shade-patch to light tree-cover and carrying gallons of water for fear of dehydration.

But it is not as though we actually have to face these treacherous conditions. One can, if they have the privilege of not working in the environment (which so many people do not), just stay inside. And, once done, the rest will too.


Pools

But we like to be outside. To cope, we've institutionalized pool-ing here. Pools serve as an oasis, a recreational opportunity to brave the warm weather, with a relatively certain promise of a cool outlet for these desires.

Pools come in an assortment of shapes, depths, colors, designs, layouts and yard-situations. They are, in a way, the symbol of upper-middle-class success. "We've made it, so let's get a pool."

There are 'doughboys', impermanent pools that sometimes pre-purchasedly inhabit the monstrously immense warehouses of Costco. Doughboys are smaller but a nice compromise, still providing a much needed sanctuary from an otherwise untimely heat-induced fate.

Inset pools have a longer life, and can often reach a greater depth, emanating a sort of religious permanence and a kind of human defiance of the local environmental conditions; it is, as well, a way of bringing and safeguarding water, what is absent, to the home, not even to be consumed but to be leisured in.

Spas and Jacuzzis are mainly nighttime affairs. They play on our bodies ecstatic and comfort-seeking obsession associated with being warmed to a certain temperature. The relax, calming effect of the Jacuzzi simulates that of the Sauna and doesn't require the same level of investment. It is also, status-wise, how one moves from solely having pool; that is, having the ability both to cool on warm days and to warm on cool nights.

Insulating its parishioners from the actual state of the local climate is as much part of enjoying pools as is any recreational activity facilitated by their presence, and the presence of water. It also seems to remind us of a primordial relationship with the stuff that we will never be able to escape, as much property values and urban flight encourage it.


Rivers and Reservoirs

In addition to constructed pools, there are numerous rivers, creeks, reservoirs, and 'naturally'-occurring bodies of flowing or still water. They are to be found both in town and outside of it, and if you move further away, you might even find a dam or two.

These might weave in and around roads or border long expanses of fields and orchards. Often, they are drawn from for irrigation purposes.

It is also widely known that Oakdale survives and thrives largely on the presence of an underground reservoir of clean, flowing water, without which, we might be be in the same situation in which unknowingly citizens of LA or San Francisco find themselves: up a creek (but really, just dependent on more hinter-landing batteries of thirst-quenching water).

Note: I've included a few photos here, but more will follow