On the Facebook page
residents lament that
the old ‘baths’ they knew are gone.
Dismiss the new ‘aquatic
centre’ as bland and uninviting.
Wistfully recall the
high dive board and giant serpentine slide
(before health and
safety 'went mad').
Entry, hot chips and
ice cream in a cone were cheap.
You met your mates and
stayed all day.
Towels dried on the
sun-baked grass.
Now everything is glassed
in, moist, slippery, almost empty,
save for compulsory
carnivals.
Low risk of sunburn and
drownings.
A girl did drown the
day the old baths opened,
but three and a half
thousand people didn’t.
I checked out the pool
before we moved here;
decided it would suit my
regimen.
The signs declare it home
to asthmatic swimmers and ninety year old lifesavers!
I didn’t dream they
were in fact re-homed,
that the first baths,
so long in gestation
were judged passé in their
forties.
Their electronic
turnstiles and wooden bleachers doubtless showed wear...
A municipal mind decreed
a treeless Oasis would supplant them.
In my a-historic,
pragmatism
I failed to pay homage to Wagga’s mourned Atlantis.
Wagga Wagga Baths 1953 - 1990s
