The neighborhood pool where I grew up had a slide... aluminum ladder, fiberglass slide, and a nozzle that continuously sprayed a small amount of water at the top of the slide. It was probably about as tall as the one here, but the slide wasn't straight; the top half was straight and then bottom half took a gentle left turn. I remember it being there since I started going there, about 1980 or so. That pool also had a (low) diving board, and a 12-foot deep end to match.

When I was a little older, I worked there in the summer, in the mid-80s. I recall that one summer the diving board was not reinstalled when the pool opened, and the people that ran the pool told me that their insurance would go way up if the diving board was there. I *think* the slide may have been missing that summer, too, but I don't remember for sure. I do remember that there was a summer with slide, but no diving board. I don't remember if the diving board eventually came back.

This is a scene, a fleeting moment in time, that encompass many eras.

Did too many fall off the top? I just came back from the lake by my house that had a slide until the early 70's but in this Minneapolis heat, I was just happy as the girl in the photo to splash in the lake.

Isn't the girl on the left wearing a "personal flotation device" in what appears to be a foot of water?

Hitting the water must feel especially nice after skidding down a dry wooden slide on a hot day. It also appears the water is only about a foot deep. But for that one instant in between road rash and hitting the bottom of a cement pool, you're in paradise.