(From MEMORIES 3)
Rounding up prehistoric horny toads was a rite of passage for all Okie boys, but you only became a man when you looked death in the face and didn’t flinch. The North Base swimming pool was where many of us Nebraska Street boys became men. It was the perfect testing ground. After all, the pool and its infamous diving boards were created by Navy Engineers during WWII. They were designed to test the courage and strength of full grown sailors who were about to go to war.
The Navy engineers weren’t satisfied with building ground level diving boards or a reasonably tall diving platform. Oh no, no, no. They apparently wanted to simulate what would happen if a sailor had to leap off the bridge of a burning ship. Or a Navy pilot had to bail out. So they built three different ways to kill you using the diving boards. If my classmate Cindy's memory is correct, and she still has a mind like a steel trap, the first diving board was 3-meters high and the second was 5-meters.
The diving tower was at least 900 feet high, as best I can remember. It was so high it gave you a nosebleed as you stood on the edge, looking down, down, down. Yet Steve and I were committed to jumping off it in 1967... #humor #oklahomahumor #memoriesofanokieboomer3 #childhood #growingup #navyhumor #northbasepool #normanhumor
