BUILDING FOR SUCCESS
Roy C. Start High School
In 1965, the West Toledo YMCA built an outdoor, Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool. I was ten. The pool had a shallow end, a deep end, a slide, an island, and a diving pool. It had Olympic race lanes where I swam many a quarter-mile. I walked to Bowman from my house, which was half a mile away, pretty much every day that it was open. The neighborhood kids and I would watch the weather report or call Time and Temperature to make sure that it had opened on iffy days. One of the nice things was that even when the weather was chilly, if it had been warm for a couple of days before, the water was still warm. I remember swimming at Bowman one fall weekend and hearing the cheers from the the football field at Roy C. Start High School next door.
I graduated from Start in 1973. I have to admit that high school was not a favorite part of my life, but still, I spent a lot of time walking to and from that school, attending classes and going to football games and basketball games. My older sister was a member of Start's first graduating class in 1965. She started high school at DeVilbiss High, from which our older brother graduated, but once Start was completed, our house was past the DeVilbiss line. She had to change schools.
Out of the two structures, I think I will miss Bowman more. It was a place to get away, a place where you could meet friends or be occupied all by yourself. The new, improved Start will have its own swimming pool. Will the kids who swim there hear echoes of the ones who swam at Bowman so long ago?
Roy C. Start High School
In 1965, the West Toledo YMCA built an outdoor, Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool. I was ten. The pool had a shallow end, a deep end, a slide, an island, and a diving pool. It had Olympic race lanes where I swam many a quarter-mile. I walked to Bowman from my house, which was half a mile away, pretty much every day that it was open. The neighborhood kids and I would watch the weather report or call Time and Temperature to make sure that it had opened on iffy days. One of the nice things was that even when the weather was chilly, if it had been warm for a couple of days before, the water was still warm. I remember swimming at Bowman one fall weekend and hearing the cheers from the the football field at Roy C. Start High School next door.
I graduated from Start in 1973. I have to admit that high school was not a favorite part of my life, but still, I spent a lot of time walking to and from that school, attending classes and going to football games and basketball games. My older sister was a member of Start's first graduating class in 1965. She started high school at DeVilbiss High, from which our older brother graduated, but once Start was completed, our house was past the DeVilbiss line. She had to change schools.
Out of the two structures, I think I will miss Bowman more. It was a place to get away, a place where you could meet friends or be occupied all by yourself. The new, improved Start will have its own swimming pool. Will the kids who swim there hear echoes of the ones who swam at Bowman so long ago?
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