Dianne Peerman Pledger - On working at the A.D. Clark Pool (clip)
Interviewed on August 12, 2022
Diane Peerman Pledger (DPP): She was the lifeguard. I, on the other hand, because I wasn’t gonna be saving nobody, I worked the basket and took the money at the front. I was good. Susan was a fantastic lifeguard, let me say, and we summers, it may have been three, four, or five summers in the 70s, and we would be at the pool all day. This is where I learned how to swim. If you all knew my mother and father, mother had told me, “Do not get in the pool.” I was the only one of the three girls that would get in the pool and I did learn how to swim. One day, I got hit in the head at the pool down there and the next thing I know is my momma was in that pool and picking me up out of that pool. Yes, ma’am. I got a real bad whooping that night, after I was alright. I was in my teens, a little younger, a little younger but I wasn’t supposed to be in the pool, but I was in the pool. So Daddy and Momma was mad.
So, we enjoyed our summers. It was our first jobs as teens. You know, they had great programs where teenagers could have jobs in the summer. You were just around all of your friends all summer. Then when we got paid, we went every Friday to the Pizza Hut downtown to get a pizza. We just had traditions of things that we did but it just continued to make us grow as friends in the community and it was just like it was home and it was a wonderful experience. I know in the mid-sixties to late-sixties my father was the director of the Center and I have some great pictures that I look forward to sharing of when we were little girls in the pool—in the baby pool! In the baby pool. And just loved being here at Hargraves and knowing the rich history and we were just fortunate that we had a place to go. Can you imagine if we did not have a place to go? What would we have done? I also went to Holmes Day Care with all my friends I grew up with. One thing that we all have in common is all you had to do was say “Hargraves” and everybody would know what you were talking about.
From the crowd: Or “The Center.”
DPP: The Center. You’re right. The Center.
