I wish President Trump had called me before tackling the reflecting pool. I could have saved him a lot of time and money.

You see, at one time, I was deeply involved in the pool maintenance business in Washington, D.C. I know a thing or two about algae, chlorine, diatomaceous earth, and how appealing you can become when you put on lifeguard shorts.

Yes, among the many jobs I held in those early years of wandering, wondering, discovery, staying one step ahead of the draft, and playing rugby, there was a time when I worked for the White Russian in the Washington pool business.

It started in the Spring of 1970. That was when all the rooftop pools, backyard pools in Georgetown, and garden apartment pools in the suburbs were awakening from a long winter’s sleep, and like hibernating bears, they were in need of grooming.

Algae removal was sort of our thing. So was purifying the water and bleaching the pool bottoms and walls. Nobody ever asked us to paint a pool “patriot blue.” In those days, a bright white vessel and crystal clear water were most appealing.

The Russian would send us out every day to tackle a few pools – scrubbing, bleaching, backwashing filters, filling them up with fresh, clean water.

See, right there is where Trump’s yahoos went wrong. While they were swabbing the decks, they should have switched the water pumps back to municipal water and just paid the damned bill. As I understand it, the reflecting pool was taking water directly from the nutrient-rich Potomac River.

Foolish, foolish.

I’m guessing that if the Russian is still around, he could bail out the president and bail out the reflecting pool, if you know what I mean. Start all over. That is, if the Russian hadn’t gotten caught up in all that January 6 business. That would be just like him.

The White Russian was big on caucasian supremacy. 

It was the first thing you noticed when he gathered his Spring pool restoration crews together for orientation and pool maintenance classes. The Russian was short. Putin-short, about 5-foot-5, but military fit, with close-cropped blond hair and a pale complexion. Pale for a guy in the pool business.

Well, the next thing you noticed was that all of his employees were young, male, white, and physically fit. He would slip in stuff about his roots as a pure, non-ethnic Russian and the natural superiority of caucasians as swimmers. See, after maintenance season, some of us would be retained as lifeguards at the bigger pools under contract to the White Russian.

The other thing was that we all had to be neatly trimmed and clean because he did not want any of us bringing disgrace upon our uniforms.

The uniforms consisted of red T-shirts with a white Superman logo on the front. I think he somehow connected Superman with white supremacy, although any U.S. kid who grew up reading comic books knew that The Man of Steel fought the Nazis and the KKK and protected minorities and immigrants.

I don’t know if any of us gave two seconds’ thought to the Russian’s personal racial biases in those days. We were just a small band of drifting pseudo-hippies grateful to have jobs. None of us took the Russian up on his offer to hold classes in which he could expound on his racial theories.

I did take him up on his offer to lifeguard at several swimming pools, even though I had no lifeguard or lifesaving credentials.

But I sure could keep a swimming pool clean. 

That job didn’t last through the season. I was studying Silva Mind Control in the evening and playing Rugby for Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on weekends, and protesting the war in Vietnam whenever opportunities arose.

Before summer barely started, I quit working for the White Russian and joined my comrades at the Kennedy Natural Foods chain that surrounded Washington.

But to come back to the unfortunate bile-green refluxing pool. It wasn’t like that when I lived there.

In fact, it was the many recent aerial pictures of the pool that triggered my happiest memories. Notice the long rectangular swath of green grass on one side of the pool? Almost as long as the pool itself.

That was our Rugby pitch.

On Sunday mornings, there would be several pitches set up. Because of the international nature of Washington, we had embassy teams representing Brazil, Scotland, Germany, England, Colombia, and several other countries. 

My team, SAIS, was partially filled with future diplomats, government leaders, and CIA operatives. The school couldn’t field a full team of egg-heads, so they recruited Marines from nearby Quantico and street rats like me with some college rugby experience.

We also played the Naval Academy, University of Maryland, Georgetown, American U., Catholic University, and a few others.

And we were good: Class B Mid-Atlantic Champions and first-ever Cherry Blossom Festival Seven-sides Champions.

Our strategy was simple: Get the ball to the Marines. They run straight ahead, and they do not fold.

There was nothing like getting your brains bashed in and looking up to see the Washington Monument towering protectively over the pool. It gave you focus, anchored you to this place. Like a compass: get the ball and run toward the memorial.

I don’t know if they still play rugby, soccer, or any other sport on those fields. I’ll bet not. Washington was a kinder, wilder place back in 1970. 

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^{Above: Ridiculous AI interpretation of my story, a rugby game near the Washington Monument}