The Swimming Pool

Rising and falling voices coming from outside our front window served as ambient noise as I puttered about the apartment this afternoon. Sometime later, I stepped through the front gate on an errand run, when one of the talkers—a younger woman—approached and asked if she could ask a question. The older lady accompanying her used to live in one of the apartments—50 years ago! The former resident recalled there being a swimming pool, or was she mistaken?

Oh, yes, long ago, a pool was the courtyard centerpiece, but the thing had been retired and filled in decades ago. Where people swam, a tree grows, as you can see from the Featured Image—taken today using Leica Q2—and the companion photo from iPhone XS on Aug. 16, 2019.

The older lady lived in the complex for about two years, with her newlywed husband. Ha! She celebrated her 21st birthday there. Can you say party time? Homesick for NoCal, the couple returned to the Bay Area, where they raised a family.

Much has changed in five decades since her brief residence. San Diego was still truly a Navy town in 1973. Metro area population was 1.3 million (3.3 million in 2023). Ronald Reagan was California governor. Richard Nixon captured the majority of votes in the Presidential election a year earlier. People rightly think of the state as being Blue, but it was very much Red fifty years ago. This was particularly true for San Diego.

So let’s discuss the photos, and the differences between them. The second shot is from a series that I hastily took before a major renovation of the courtyard (which I disapproved). In that one, the contours and character of the former swimming pool clearly can be seen. The newer capture shows what the area looks like now. Thankfully, the tree remains. I worried that the building’s management company would either choose to chop down the tree or that the reno might kill it.

I lay flat on the cement for the first photo. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/8, ISO 100, 1/15 sec, 28mm; 3:43 p.m. PST. The second: f/1.8, ISO 25, 1/1190 sec, 26m; 1:31 p.m. PDT.