Love for Pools

2^nd June 2015

Dear Cassi,

I’ve always had a love for pools which is no wonder in the state of California because of the heat, but did I ever tell you about the pool I had as a kid? It was one of those above ground jobs with steel sides and an uneven bottom. I loved that pool. I would come home from school and jump in wearing nothing but my jockeys and for most of my young life the water went up to my chin making me prance around.

I did very little swimming, but I loved the water so that I would just do laps walking from one end of the pool to the other. There was a time that the pool was heated, but the heater broke, and then we took it apart. I remember it being full of dust and old plastic bracelets. The base had been made of loose red bricks which became toys once unearthed.   

I used to build temples and army bases of those old bricks. A few I crushed back into dust, but why I couldn’t tell you. I never knew how sick my mother was until I was nine, and she never had the time to be there for me. I remember my happiest moments as a child being alone with my thoughts. I was a world onto myself back then and in a way we all are now.

You can figure that’s part of my keeping to myself now days, but there is much more to it than that condition. In the darkness of our lives we should let our mind grow distinguished and wise but keep our hearts young and able.

Well, one day I came home to find the side of my pool burst open and the back lawn teaming with insects floating in the chlorinated water. That was the worst day of my life at that point, but I didn’t know it yet.

Know what you have, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

The Old Tree House

3^rd June 2015

Dear Cassi,

There was some other feature of my home that I have long forgotten and so forgotten to mention. When I was young I had a tree house. Rather I had a wood shack suspended above a fig tree on stilts. It over looked the pool that blew up but after the pool died shortly went the tree house.

We used to dive out of that tree house into the pool but with the pool gone and the children ageing, what use was the old bit of poorly cared for wood? The thing was in poor repair and I have no doubt that it would have become dangerous had it stood much longer.

That that is my young life personified in that old wood hut with a two part door up on stilts. It was splintered and broken, falling apart and unsafe, and went so long unloved. That’s my life and now I too and broken. The only thing is that I have to put myself back together.

Keep it together, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Health Advice: Ask a Fat Man

31^st July of 2011

Dear Cassi,

The strangest of all things happened last week when I went to the gym. I submersed my three hundred pound bulk in the pool and began to run. An hour after I began my labors, a man struck up a conversation with me from the side of the pool.

He confessed to me that he had gained a great state of health then stopped coming to the gym and gained the weight back. He said, from his spot standing on the side of the pool, that he was committed to dropping another five pounds before working out with weights.

Far be it from a good idea for a fat man like me to give health advice, but I told him that he should pay little mind to five pounds. The man proceeded to ask me questions about health and diet until another hour of my cardio had passed. I found it hard to hear him when I walked to the other side of the pool, but he showed no inclination to walk along as I jogged or find a better spot for our conversation.

   

I found him to be devoid of understanding in the nature of health. I gave what knowledge I had on the subjects he asked about, but I see little hope for a man who is inclined to watch as others exert themselves. He took his leave of me and said he was on his way to the upper gym to get some work done.

   

This event should hold little surprise for me. I once saw a five hundred pound man selling diet products and people still took an interest.

Sometimes we see what we want to,

Richard Leland Neal