The Pool

When we were kids we had a friend who lived a couple houses down from us who had a pool.  Having access to a pool during summer break was a kid's dream come true.  No crowds, no costs, just sun and fun.

Even though the deep end was only 8 feet deep, you always felt like an accomplished deep sea diver if you could touch the bottom.

And you were even more of a badass if you could swim from one end of the pool to the other without coming up for air.

There were the endless games of Marco Polo...

...and super straw fights...

...but nothing tops the list of pool awesomeness as the diving board.

The diving board served as the stage for the main event of super jump tricks. The object of the game was to out-do your friends by coming up with the most unique, acrobatic, death defying, trick jump. 

It was almost as if you were expecting a scout from the PDBTJA (Professional Diving Board Trick Jumper's Association) to pop out from behind a tree and say:

I'm sure we thought that the jumps we were performing were never to be matched masterpieces... even though at least 75 percent of the time your body would be parallel with the water right before you hit, leaving you helplessly knowing in that split second you were about to have a stinging blood-red belly or back when you came back up for air.

Yes... they were good times. Good times indeed.