***Disclaimer: The names of the guilty will not be changed. I will not protect them. I am sharing what happened to me from my perspective. I will share my story.***

I met a good friend from my old job for coffee this morning and we talked for almost four hours. I shared my story of how I quit the pool, what I said to Fryer on my way out the door, and how amazingly Free and Vibrant I feel as a result of my actions.

My friend was born the year after I graduated high school, and I was always in a position of authority whenever we worked together during the past six years. She shared a few stories of her own experiences at work, and she spoke of a time when I scared her with my style of confrontation concerning her performance as a lifeguard.

What I found to be the most interesting revelation from our discussion was her description of our work envirnoment as being the “Cult of the Pool.”

The pool is a cult — Jeff Fryer is not the leader. Dale Weigandt is not the leader. They are simply the old white men who are in charge of administrating the pool.

The pool was built in the early-mid 1950s as part of a Parks and Recreation District separate from the city’s tax base. Santa Clara exists within, and as a part of, our local municipality, but our little neighborhood Park District, on the northern edge of town close to the surrounding rural areas, is an entity of and in itself, supported entirely by local residents. We have our own tax base for financial support, but it is slowly and systematically being reduced in piecemeal parcels by our city government. The District has had to beg its remaining voters for a levy multiple times in order to remain open and functioning.

I love the Park District. My love and respect for the District is what has kept me from hiring a lawyer and from seeking financial recompense for my suffering of harassment and discrimination over the years. The District offers swim lessons, recreational swim times, water exercise, lap swimming, an expanded exercise room, as well as two hot tubs and a sauna. And that is only on the pool side. The dry side of the District offers daycare, Pre-K classes, after-school programs, senior programs, and adult activities and classes to name a few. The surrounding park grounds offer a beautiful setting of towering Douglas Firs with picnic tables in the grass, two shelters for rental, a renovated playground, a skate park, a sand volleyball court, a track and basketball court, and the last functioning wading pool in the entire city — also newly renovated as of last summer from a grant.

The District building also includes several classrooms, a large multi-purpose room for gatherings and exercise classes, a fully functional kitchen, and the main office along with smaller department offices. A few years ago the building was outfitted with solar panels as part of a grant from our local energy provider EWEB. The pool side has been equipped with automated chemical systems for the hot tubs (which tend to fail at regular intervals) and a brand-spanking new UV filtration system for the swimming pool.

All in all, the Park District is an amazing facility and it offers a variety of services that should ultimately be offered in every community throughout our entire nation!

The processes by which the Park District is administered, however . . . that is nothing more than a stubborn remnant of a society born during the post-war boom when women were considered successful if they were married, had dinner cooked on time, and had the kids well-dressed and ready to greet daddy when he got home from work. My two previous bosses, the Aquatics Director and the Park District Superintendent, are men who have been allowed to remain in power within a professional culture lacking oversight, personal responsibility, and an awareness for the social evolution of Equality within the Workplace.

But, back to the main point of the pool being a cult . . .

It is hard to quit the pool. And it can be extremely easy to get sucked back in once you do manage to leave. There is no rhyme or reason as to why it can be hard to leave. We simply get sucked into the pattern of showing up for work and doing our jobs and spending our paychecks. The hardest part, I think, can be the friendships we make while working at the pool. It can be difficult to decide to stop working with the people who laugh with us and believe our stories. The people we work with are the only people in the world who can possibly understand and comprehend the absurdities we experience daily while working for a small neighborhood Park District that is hidden among the most diverse and relatively rural section of town. It is an experience not easily shared with people on the outside who do not have the exposure to our private hell.

I will share an example that was provided by my friend during coffee this morning. A short story to justify my assertion that the pool, and District in general, are stuck in a timewarp that defiantly ignores the social changes swirling around us in our post-modern culture. A story that may help to prove how the forces that can keep a person locked within the surreal confinement of a cult are diligently at work within the pool environment.

My friend shared a story of her own personal encounter with a patron at the pool who easily fits into the category of ‘creepy old man.’ This is a man only a few years older than myself, who was once on the North Eugene High School swim team, and has been swimming at the pool for the past twenty-plus years. I have my own stories of this person’s ‘creepiness,’ but luckily for me, I am of an older generation than my friend, and I have always been able to relate to this particular male on a different level then what was accessible to her at the time of her encounter.

I listened as she told me about a time she was at the pool during her off hours and wearing her swimsuit instead of her uniform. This man asked her for a towel from the back office and, as she turned to get one for him, he put his hand on the bare skin of her back that was exposed from the cut of her one-piece bathing suit. This particular male has grown up swimming at the pool and tends to think of everyone working there as his ‘family.’ The problem was that my friend is too young to think of him as her ‘family’ (let alone a ‘friend’) and she was upset by his blind familiarity. This was not the first time this man had inappropriately touched her without her consent (and made her feel “icky”), but it was the first time she decided to say something.

My friend told the Building Supervisor working that night about the incident and the Building Supervisor was upset. This particular BS is slightly younger than me, but older than my friend, and male. He told the story to Jeff Fryer, the Aquatics Director, who he expected would do something about the incident. Instead, Fryer simply said he told the head swim coach, Bill Kuzmer, about the situation and would let him handle it, since the man in question had swam for Bill during his time in high school twenty-five years prior. The problem, of course, was that Bill is known for doing nothing that would result in a confrontation. Fryer is equally known for doing nothing when it comes to any form of confrontation. As a result, we have all learned over the years to not bother informing the ‘men in power’ of the problems we face as young lifeguards, or as females.

Learning how to survive within a culture of blatant sexual harassment that is never acknowledged, nor challenged, by the people in power is equivalent to being in a cult and never questioning why, or how, things are done. The pool sucks us in and we know it. We are aware of our failure to escape. Even when one of us manages to run away and not look back, it is usually our friends, those who were left behind to try and manage surviving within this broken system, who somehow manage to reach out and hook us back in. Misery loves company.

The ability to survive within a hostile environment that seeks to destroy your inherent strength and dignity is comparable to learning how to survive in a cult. At least, this is my personal belief. It is part of the reason I believe I was capable of working at the Park District for so many years despite the abuse I suffered. It simply was just the ‘way things are done.’ There was no reason to question, no need to challenge, no reward for resistance.

I escaped the pool. I quit my job and I left everything behind me as I walked out. My swim suit, towel and uniform are still hanging on my hook. Memos are still sitting in my box in the employee breakroom. Food is still in the locker I had been using for the past five years or so. I left everything behind. I did not turn around to look behind me as I ran out the front door and towards a life I am proud to live! A life that will not harm me daily on an emotional, psychological, or physiological level. I ran away from the pool exactly as if it were a cult and my very life depended upon my successful escape.