06/15/2026
"Plate Cove Pool"
By: Brent Keough
Before we knew what freedom was,
we knew this pool.
Not because anyone told us.
Because every summer, it called our names.
A pool built on the edge of the Atlantic.
A place that shouldn't really exist.
Fed by a waterfall.
Drained by the ocean.
As if somebody looked at the coastline and thought,
"What if we borrowed a little piece of nature and let the kids keep it?"
And we did.
God, did we ever.
From morning until supper.
From supper until the streetlights didn't matter.
We lived there.
Sunburnt shoulders.
Wrinkled fingers.
Bare feet tough enough to walk gravel without flinching.
The water was never the same twice.
Fresh water rushing in from the falls.
Salt water waiting just beyond the wall.
One foot in the brook.
One foot in the ocean.
And somehow, that felt normal.
The older I get, the more impossible it seems.
But when you're a kid, you don't know you're standing inside something special.
You think every town has a pool carved into the edge of the sea.
You think everyone learns courage by climbing the railings.
Everyone races their friends across the concrete.
Everyone spends entire days with nothing but imagination, a towel, and a promise to be home before dark.
You don't realize you're collecting memories.
You think you're just swimming.
But years later, you find out those summers never left.
They're still there.
In the sound of rushing water.
In the smell of salt on the wind.
In every conversation that starts with,
"Remember when..."
Because the pool wasn't just a pool.
It was where friendships were built.
Where confidence was discovered.
Where entire childhoods unfolded one cannonball at a time.
And maybe that's why it still matters.
Not because of the concrete.
Not because of the water.
Not even because it's one of the most unique pools you'll ever find.
It matters because for a little town called Plate Cove East,
that pool held an entire generation.
A generation of kids who laughed louder than they knew how.
Dreamed bigger than they understood.
And believed summer would last forever.
The water came from the falls.
The water returned to the ocean.
But the memories?
Those stayed.
Right here.
In all of us.
