Minnesota Prairie Roots

The Kenyon, Minnesota, swimming pool opens on June 12.

SUMMER IN MINNESOTA. It’s synonymous with water and the outdoors and community events. County fairs and small town celebrations. Parades. Summer camps and trips to the lake cabin. Hiking and camping and anything that takes us into the woods, to lakes and pools. Family reunions. Togetherness. Because our winters are so harsh and long, we Minnesotans delight in summer.

Picnicking at Depot Park in Kenyon on Saturday.

But this summer looks much different due to COVID-19 and the restrictions in place. Most celebrations are canceled, camps closed, etc. I’m of the cautionary camp, recognizing the very real risks of the virus and the need to protect not only myself but others. I’m careful, avoiding situations that raise the risk of exposure or that aren’t, by health standards, particularly safe. There will be no attending family reunions or similar at-home gatherings for me. (Such gatherings are currently limited to 25 anyway.) I’m closing in on the high risk age, just barely under it. And I have friends who’ve had family members with COVID-19, including one death.

All of that said, I can only imagine the difficulty right now of parenting children from preschool age to teen. Most kids by nature are social creatures. Preschoolers play together, grab toys from one another. Grade schoolers and teens just want to hang together. Play sports. I’ve seen plenty of teens congregating at parks in my community and nearby towns, including crammed onto basketball courts. I understand their innate need to connect. And that includes hanging out at the lake, pool or aquatic center. COVID-19 doesn’t top their list of concerns.

Behind the fence, the Kenyon Pool fills with water on Saturday for opening on June 12.

Today, June 10, indoor and outdoor pools in Minnesota are allowed to reopen to the general public at 50 percent capacity with a COVID-19 Preparedness Plan in place. That includes social distancing, encouraged use of cloth face masks when not in the pool, employee health screening and much more. The State of Minnesota details requirements and recommendations at Stay Safe Minnesota.

The Kenyon man who tipped us off to the pool opening, pictured near a playground and the pool in Depot Park.

Quite by happenstance, I learned last Saturday that the city swimming pool in Kenyon is reopening. We were picnicking at Depot Park, a park complex that includes the pool and Randy chatted it up with an elderly gentleman who lives nearby. He mentioned the city was filling the pool and, sure enough, water funneled into the larger of the two pools. The filling process, he noted, would take several days. A check of the city Facebook page shows the pool opens on Friday. That includes for open swim, swimming lessons, lap swimming and water aerobics.

A building at the Kenyon Municipal Swimming Pool.

It will be interesting to see how this works in practice. Will pool users social-distance and will (mostly) teen employees “enforce” rules? Will parents watch and monitor their kids? Or will kids be kids and mingle and play together as usual, pandemic or not? I think it will be tough, really tough, to assure safe practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in such a setting. But if individuals, families, and cities, are willing to take the risk, then that’s their choice.

Filling an above ground pool in Elysian on Sunday afternoon.

The following day, I saw a family in the community of Elysian exercising another option. Randy and I, out for a Sunday picnic and drive, had just pulled up to the recreational trailside center when we noticed a water tanker truck from the Elysian Fire Department in a yard across the street. The “firefighters” were filling a backyard above-ground pool with water. It was so small town iconic. And a reason to pause and smile in the middle of a global pandemic. Ah, summer fun in Minnesota…

The water tanker drives toward downtown Elysian.

TELL ME: How do you feel about the reopening of swimming pools and aquatic centers to the general public? Please be respectful in your comments. Do not make this political. I monitor all comments and reserve the right, as author of this personal blog, to not publish comments. Thank you.

© Copyright 2020 Audrey Kletscher Helbling