To the Editor:
When I read the letter to the editor about the Thacher Park Pool in the Aug. 3 issue [“We citizens got nothing to replace our pool at Thacher; it’s needed as climate warms”], I was swept back to 1960, a summer outing to the park with my family right after we moved to the Albany area from Syracuse. I’d never been in a swimming pool before; in Syracuse, we’d gone to local lakes and waded into fresh water from sandy beaches.

The scene is so clear in my mind: I’m a fearful 6-year-old clinging to my dad. He backs us into the water, deeper and deeper, so blue, so cold, so infinite. “Wheee” he says as he bounces gently, water up to my chin. “Don’t drop me,” I plead.

Nearby, kids splash and shriek; I cower. No, I don’t want to lie back, let’s just stay like this. Dad’s arms hold me tight and I notice how light I feel, how the bright sun and cloudless sky add to my sense of buoyancy.

It was my only time in that pool. Dad died from a heart attack within the year, and I started spending summers with relatives near Lake Ontario so Mom could go to work. Over the years, I swam and played in lots of other pools.

In 1971, I graduated from Guilderland High School. Then I finished college and grad school and moved to Washington, D.C. 

On my rare visits back to Guilderland, I’ve always liked to stop by Thacher Park, where my teenage friends and I used to picnic and hike. Though I never entered the Thacher Park pool again, I’d glimpse it now and then and remember my time in the pool with Dad. It still looked the same, so very blue, a big irregular circle, although not as vast as I’d perceived at age 6.

When I brought my husband to the park one year to show him around, I felt a tug in my gut when I realized the pool was gone. 

We were in Guilderland for a few days this July and spent an afternoon in the park. I was heartened to see everything in good shape, the new visitor center, the exhibits, all so clean and well kept. The sweeping view over the valley — a treasure I didn’t really appreciate in my teens. We hiked the Indian Ladder Trail and it was as I remembered — waterfalls, streams, moisture trickling along the rockface, bits of fossils, swaths of ferns. 

I don’t know if you have lots of other outdoor public pools in the area, and maybe my reasons for wishing to see a pool in Thacher Park are sentimental. But there’s no substitute for public pools in a beautiful setting where, for a small fee, people can swim, play, sunbathe, and relax with friends.

Timothy J. Albright, author of the letter that inspired mine, noted that Thacher Park is a “remarkably special place,” and I couldn’t agree more. It would be nice if, in the future, another little girl could go there with her family, play in the big blue pool with her dad, and hold onto a shiny memory that lasts a lifetime.

Vicki Meade

Annapolis, Maryland

Editor’s note: See related editorial.