North Shore News

IF 1 WAS going to make a litthe family vi
movie, | would title it: The Revenge OF The Swimming

Pool.

It beean on the first day of
summer holidays, Into the pool
went the kids, the older one
celebrating his escape from
school,

Alas, the water had really not
had any time to warm. Ie was
freezing. Before we realized it,
the older kid) was suffering
from) hypothermia. Combined
with a cold we didn’t realize he
had picked up, it proved to be
enough to leave him with a
wracking cough for the entire
summer holidays.

Great.

When you have kids. of
course, you Uy to keep the sick
one and the healthy one apart,
but that requires almost a full-
time referee.

With the swimming pool sit-
ting out in the back yard, the
f drama of kid fife m the house
intensified enormously. The
healthy kid screamed to be fet
in the pool, of course. So did
the sick one but we couldn't
allow that until his cold was
over, naturally.

And one hated the other
because the other couldn't go in
and the one could.

I should have taken the curs-
ed thing down — but we kept
thinking the kid would be better
in another few days. And,
besides, the rest of us wanted
badly to get out there and
splash around.

Ho, ho! We were so inno-
cent! Splash around, indeed!

Ho turns out that a swimming
pool is more trouble to take
care of than a horse.

{very day you have to go out
with a little testing kit and play
mad scientist, taking samples
and trying to figure out whether
the PE is too low or toa high
and whether there's enough
chlorine of so much that even
the birds flying overhead are
affected by the deadly rays and
fall out of the sky.

All the measurements are
given in metric, of course, and
since nobody seemed able to
translate litres and grams into
gallons and cups, we ended up
just guessing.

Throw in a pinch of this, a
pinch of that. See if it bubbles.
After a while, you do sort of
| get the hang of how to keep the
balance somewhere between a
witch's brew and a septic tank.

Despite all this constant
monitoring and the ritual pour-
ing-in of deadly chemicals, you
still get a certam amount of
organic fife thriving in the chlo-
rine depths. It’s an amazing tes-
timony to nature’s relent-
lessness.

Bob Hunter

@ strictly personal ®

filter and a pump that circulates
the water so you don’t have to
keep draining and (ding the
pool,

What thes don’t tell vou is
that you have to keep changing
the FILTER. Aha. And not on-
ly that but every time you turn
off the pump, you have to
prime it to get it started again.
Wonderful!

Another littl discovery: bugs
are always landing in the water.
Every kind of bug you can

@_ em capilano
@ am colege

deo horror

imagine: mosquitoes, hornets,
ants, moths — flies, bees, cen-
tipedes, spiders.

Then there are the seeds and
leaves and pollen blown on the
wind. The gr tss that spews out
of the lawn inower, as if goes
by. The mud and sand that the
baby tosses in.

And all the bacteria carried
on the rare visiting humans who
dare to take a dunk.

Belated|y, | was advised that
you have to have something
called a skimmer in order to
keep scooping up the hundreds
of tiny corpses and other bits of
nature before they sink to the

SPECIAL
NOTICE

Extended In-Person Registration for

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
PART-TIME EVENING
CREDIT COURSES

(Tues. Sept. 2 to Fri. Sept,

10:00 am to 3:30 pm)

Don't-miss the course you want this Fall! If you.”
missed our registration deadline 6n August 25 you
can still register in-person at the Business
Management Office, 5th floor, 'H’ Building, Capilano:

College.

All evening courses begin the week of September
8-12, Courses run 6:30 to 9:30 pm Monday-Thursday.
Fees are $103.50 per course. Seats are’ still available
“in the following courses on a first come first served

basis.

Monday Evening
Accounting | ACCT 178

Financial Accounting ACCT 255

Tuesday Evening

Business Statistics BSMG 171

Accounting | ACCT 178
Accounting If ACCT 179

Cost & Managerial Accounting | ACCT 264

_ Wednesday Evening

Supervisory Skills BSMG 163.

intro to Business Taxation ACCT 286 -
Uses of Business Microcomputers CMPT 222

Thursday Evening

Introductory Advertising BSMG 273
Intro to Business Computers. CMPT 180
Smali.Business: Management BSMG 210
Canadian Business Law | BSMG 240

- Call the Business Management Department: for
: cone » more Information at 984-4960.

bottom,

I tried doing this with the
kind of net you use in an
aquarium. Fhe catch was that J
had to do jt every day, other-
wise it was too late.

Between checking the chemi-
cal balance in the morning and
skimming and pouring in chem-
ieals in the evening, | was spen-
ding more time tending to the
pool than to my kids or wife.

In the end, also these efforts
were mn ovam. The ervstal-clear
water, so. brilliant: in the
sunlight against the blue vinyl
bottom, gradually turned the
color of brench-Canadian pea
soup.

We couldn't tell what was
under the surface any longer.
Might be just about any
mutated thing. Maybe one of

the Transformer toys that had
got dropped in had come te ie
as a radioactive alligator.

According to the salesmen at
the department store where we
bought the swimming ‘unit,’
as it’s called, the solution when
blooms of algae appear is to
buy something called Shock.
God knows what it is — [ was
afraid to look at the label,

We hurled in a chemical gre-
nade or two of Shock. Nothing
happened. Tried again. Still the
Opaque pea soup.

The department store guys
weren't fazed. The trick if
Shock doesn’t work, they ex-
plained smoothly, is to buy
something called Super-Shock,
Eurcka! f should have known!

Last night, 7) drained the
pool.

LEGAL SERVICES

LYNN VALLEY CENTRE

9:00-5:30
10:00-1:00

¢ Weekdays
* Saturdays

Evening Appointments
984-3366

tetnal consudtatran witha fees

| 7 GARY BALDWIN

Computerized Sewing
FROM SWEDEN
The Husqvarna 940 is the only
European computerized sewing machine
under *1000.”. It sews all types of
fabrics quickly and easily. Programmed
push button stitch selection automatically
sets the widti, and length for each stitch.
OTHER FEATURES INCLUDE:

Dual lighting ~ Automatic bobbin winding
Automatic buttonholes ~ 13 needle positions
” Computerized speed control & needie stop

$ 95

By the way, they sell you a

“Beginners Ceramic Classes”

Class starting dates for 8 week course ...
Sept. 2,3 & 4

Sign up now for our Tues. Wed. or Thurs.
evenings

Classes also available for teens &
children.

Call now for your reserved space.
Artistic talents not necessary!

MOUNTAIN CERAMICS CENTRE
1523 Pemberton Ave., North Van.

987-1912

SEWING CENTRE

742 WESTVIEW CTR. -NORTH VAN.

986-1341

STORE HOURS OPEN 9:30 - 6:00 SUNDAYS 10:00- 5:00