Carmel Valley Pool Life
by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
When
I first moved to Monterey County California more than twenty years ago, I
worked part-time and would take my daughter Florence out to the Carmel Valley
pool during summer vacations.
I
always bought a summer pass and took some writing to do while Florence played
and swam. I thought the summer pass was
a great investment, because we went there everyday Monday through Friday. The pool also had a concession stand where
you could buy an inexpensive lunch.
The
Monterey Peninsula is chillier than you would expect and does not have pool
weather. Surfers wear wetsuits in the
cold Pacific waters here. The
temperature range is between the high 60s and low 70s.
However,
once you go inland toward the mountains, the temperatures rise to the mid 80s
and 90s in Carmel Valley – wine grape growing territory. Carmel Valley Village is obviously great
swimming pool territory.
At
the pool, I pulled up two lounge chairs for Florence and me and put an adjustable
umbrella between the chairs to angle shade my way when the sun changed
position.
After
two or three hours of water play, Florence would come play move star and lay
back on her lounge chair. She would push
her wet hair back and put on black sunglasses.
She repeated what I always said, “Those mountains with the blue sky
behind them are beautiful.”
The
pool is next to a large park with green grass and a white gazebo with lacy
woodwork. When there was a breeze, the
wind smelled like freshly cut grass.
There are several picnic tables in the park for families doing larger
lunches.
Once
Florence was comfortable, I would ask her if she wanted a hot dog or hamburger
that day. With the order placed, I would
usually bring back all-beef hot dogs with “the works” on them, diet sodas, and
ice cream sandwiches.
After
lunch, we would clean up and head back to town happy and fed with plans to
return.
On
one of our trips to the Carmel Valley pool, one of the other sunbathers there
introduced herself to me.
She
was an author, who had just obtained her first publishing contract.
I
congratulated her and said, “I have a bunch of writing prompt responses here
that I am trying to arrange and put together into a book.”
“Would
you like me to look at some of it?” she asked.
“I’d
love it,” I said and added, “I know most people pay for this type of
consulting, but all I can afford now is lunch.
Can I offer you a hot dog meal?”
“Sure,”
she said and added, “I’d love it.”
Florence
came out of the pool and talked with the Carmel Valley Welcome Committee author
as I went to get us all lunch.
The
author had some good advice for my writing responses that I wanted to turn into
a book.
“Maybe
short stores that resemble movie scenes would be a way to start before formally
outlining memoirs, which still use narrative storytelling,” she said.
I
wrote that down and made a smile next to the note. I was starting to like Monterey County very
much.
I
thanked her and said that I would be taking classes with David Gitin at
Monterey Peninsula College and wanted to have some work together before classes
started.
“That’s
an efficient way to work,” she said and thanked me for lunch.
The
author disappeared into a writing cave to write many more books, but I saw her
at the grocery store sometimes when I went to Trader Joe’s in Pacific Grove as
she busied herself with mundane chores that might become movie scenes.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
