1966 town pool badge: chlorine, dad, summer sunset, the thoughtful assist

My Springfield Town Pool badge, 1966. When I wasn’t at camp in the summer, this is where I hung out. Best memories: my father, the late Sam Filreis, coming home from an exhausting day at work and commuter traffic on Route 22, quickly changed at home, met us at the pool for dinner in the snack bar or a picnic my parents assembled, and then played an intense early-evening game of volleyball with his friends. I watched that game in awe, wondering how he got through those long days at a job he only ever half-loved with such patience, and thinking just then what pleasures were to be had from a post-9-5-job swim, dinner with his three silly kids, and playing hard at a game he loved as the sun set. To this day, the scent of public-pool chlorine reminds me of Sam, never a spiker, always a set-up guy, lowering himself patiently, and putting the ball up perfectly for some bigger person to finish off the point. My father loved the thought-out assist.