Peace and Quiet Ain't What It's Cracked Up To Be

August 14, 2017 11:08 PM

94 yo puts in a pool for the neighborhood kids. Who needs a thousand lakes when your neighbor lets you use their pool?

Keith Davison (94) after the death of his wife of 66 years got sick of sitting around, staring at the walls and crying, so he came up with the idea of putting in a pool so his neighbors would come by.

Still, Davison is first to admit, from an economic standpoint, there’s no sense to be made of a 94-year-old installing a pool. He just doesn’t care. “I'm not sitting by myself looking at the walls,” he smiles. Besides, Davison asks, “What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?”

Davison says the kids won’t be having all the fun. He still enjoys swimming himself after the children have gone home.

I guess next to having good fences, the best neighbors are ones that encourage you to use their pool.

posted by AugustWest (30 comments total)

Get off my lawn and go jump in the pool...
posted by jim in austin at 11:23 PM on August 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

What an absolutely wonderful man!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:30 PM on August 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

My second thought (after JEALOUS!!) was "Isn't he worried about being sued if someone gets hurt??" But then I remembered he's 94 and he probably doesn't care about being sued in the least. Go, him!
posted by greermahoney at 12:04 AM on August 15, 2017 [35 favorites]

His rule about having a parent or grandparent supervise the kids who come over- this would help with the safety issue.
posted by freethefeet at 1:57 AM on August 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

His rule about having a parent or grandparent supervise the kids who come over- this would help with the safety issue.

There's a concept of an "attractive nuisance," which is that if you have something on your property that is likely to tempt people to come and behave unsafely, you can be liable for injury to them even if you didn't give them permission to use the thing. If some kid snuck into his pool without an adult and got hurt, I think he could still be liable. But as you said, he's 94, and he may not care. I actually think it may be more of an ethical issue than a liability one: I'm sure he genuinely wants to avoid having someone get hurt on his property, because he seems like the kind of person who would care about that.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:22 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

The attractive nuisance thing would seem to be argument against anybody ever having a swimming pool, not just this guy. Given that thousands of people have them, what about this guy's specific situation makes him more likely to be sued than anyone else with a pool?
posted by Ipsifendus at 4:25 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

They say at the end that he's now putting up a pool fence. So maybe it would only be open under supervision.
posted by carter at 4:26 AM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

The guy is a former judge; I expect he has some sense of how to handle liability. Plus, he just installed a fence around the pool. Anyway, I think this is an awesome story. I just got back from visiting my nearly 97 year old grandmother who has been living alone since my grandfather died 20 years ago. She is mentally sharp and incredibly stubborn and wants to remain in her house until the very end (against her children's wishes, all of whom have offered to take her in). It's a terribly lonely life she's chosen for herself. This man's way of spreading joy and finding some company for himself is brilliant.
posted by katie at 4:29 AM on August 15, 2017 [29 favorites]

The attractive nuisance thing would seem to be argument against anybody ever having a swimming pool, not just this guy

Yup. Everyone with a pool needs to worry about being an attractive nuisance. But most people deal with it by keeping people out (by, for instance, putting up a fence that only allows access through the house), and that's the opposite of what he's aiming for.

I'm sure he'll figure it out, though.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:35 AM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

It has a diving board. There's a reason (insurance) that there aren't many of those left in the wild.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:12 AM on August 15, 2017

Yeah, all it takes is one 10-year-old to sneak in the pool at night, and ... ah, f*** it, he's 94, what are they going to do to him? I hope I can be as generous when I'm his age.
posted by math at 6:02 AM on August 15, 2017

See lonely men, all you need is $30,000 for an indoor pool and a couple hundred dollars a month to maintain it and a neighborhood full of kids and then winter comes and you're right back where you started oh I guess it's time to watch TV in the dark again
posted by Automocar at 6:22 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Good on that man. There was a documentary here in the UK recently about a nursery opening in an home for the elderly. There were apparently massively beneficial effects for both the kids and the residents.
posted by threetwentytwo at 6:38 AM on August 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

See lonely men, all you need is $30,000 for an indoor pool and a couple hundred dollars a month to maintain it and a neighborhood full of kids and then winter comes and you're right back where you started oh I guess it's time to watch TV in the dark again

For another 10k he can turn it into an ice rink in winter!
posted by brook horse at 7:05 AM on August 15, 2017 [7 favorites]

For another 10k he can turn it into an ice rink in winter!

It's Minnesota. The whole freaking state is an ice rink six months out of the year.
posted by maxsparber at 7:25 AM on August 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

See lonely men, all you need is $30,000 for an indoor pool and a couple hundred dollars a month to maintain it and a neighborhood full of kids and then winter comes and you're right back where you started oh I guess it's time to watch TV in the dark again.

I bet come winter he's got lots of invitations to dinner.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:50 AM on August 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

Awesome. Thank you.
posted by photoslob at 7:52 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is a nice story, and I refuse to listen to anybody trying to tell me he's Doing It Wrong.
posted by JanetLand at 8:01 AM on August 15, 2017 [40 favorites]

My late elderly neighbor had a genius way of getting all her housework and pet care done; get the neighborhood kids to do it and pay them in ice cream and candy. She lived alone, so she loved coming home to the sounds of children calling her name and asking if she needed any help. This had the bonus effect of creating a small army of children utterly loyal to her; the next-door neighbor she was constantly feuding with had his lawn pooped on by every dog in the neighborhood because the kids would literally drag them over mid-poop.

I hope to implement her methods someday when I become a crone.
posted by Soliloquy at 9:06 AM on August 15, 2017 [69 favorites]

Everyone with a pool needs to worry about being an attractive nuisance. But most people deal with it by keeping people out (by, for instance, putting up a fence that only allows access through the house)

In Illinois building a fence around an in-ground swimming pool is the law.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:34 AM on August 15, 2017

I too wish to grow up to be Soliloquy's neighbor, assuming I live somewhere where there are enough free-range children to permit this sort of arrangement. Genius.
posted by sciatrix at 9:40 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have actually attempted to implement Soliloquy's neighbor's methods within my own family. I called it allowance. They walk the dog, take out the trash and assorted other small things like bring their laundry downstairs to the washer. I would pay them a weekly stipend. In the words of those kids, Epic Fail. Maybe instead of cash, I should have paid in kind.



What I loved about this story, what caught my eye was my memories of going to visit my grandparents as a kid. They had a pool. They had a nice basketball court in their driveway too. Long after their kids (my mother) moved away, the neighborhood kids would still come to play and swim. She would always have pb&j sammies and lemonade at lunch time for anyone who wanted. Even the crust was cut off of some of them. My brothers and I got to make all sorts of good friends from her neighborhood that we would not have known otherwise since we lived two states away. And, every once in a long while, my grandfather, a very proper man and also a retired judge, would come out to the basketball court and play a game of P-I-G with the kids making them take long set shots. He could nail a 30 footer while wearing a tie, dress pants and heavy leather shoes. If he ever broke out his hook shot circa 1940, you were in for a treat.
posted by AugustWest at 9:50 AM on August 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

I had a neighbor like this, Mr. Olewiler. His house was one of the two original houses in the neighborhood when it was otherwise just farms, so he had this big triple-sized lot that had an old overgrown formal garden, cherry trees, a little stone monument/pool, etc. And he invited all the neighborhood children to play there all they liked. We played pirates and robbers, hiding in all the secret places, we climbed trees and ate cherries and hid stashes of comics and even a few girlie magazines under the porch. Every winter we cut holly from his giant tree for decorations, every spring we gathered forsythia and azaleas.

We were next door, and when my parents put a fence around the backyard to keep my brother from wandering, we put in three gates: front yard, side yard, and Mr. Olewiler's yard. It looks odd now, because the new neighbors put up a wood fence around the backyard (and the giant extension to the old house), but it still makes me smile to see it when I go home and remember all that.
posted by tavella at 9:59 AM on August 15, 2017 [16 favorites]

as a kid, we had elderly next door neighbors. they had a wonderful, smooth patio in their back yard that was perfect for rollerskating, so i spent hours over there as a child, skating in happy circles. as i grew older and thought back, i often wondered if i was being a pest.

i'm in my 40s now, and those neighbors have long since died. reading this article and seeing the comments in this thread gives me some peace about the "pest" question-- of course i wasn't a pest! they loved having me (and often my rollerskating friends) around, playing happily on their patio, perfecting spins and turns and tricks on skates.

lovely link-- thank you for sharing it.
posted by hollisimo at 10:37 AM on August 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

He's a retired federal judge. Anybody who sues him on some attractive nuisance angle is going to have their work cut out for them. Hell, he'd probably have some fun defending himself from a lawsuit if he didn't want to ask around for a volunteer lawyer or 12. The trial could be in the winter, one hopes.
posted by dubwisened at 10:38 AM on August 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

I hope to implement her methods someday when I become a crone.

The real trick is getting all those kids to live on the island.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:51 AM on August 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

It looks odd now, because the new neighbors put up a wood fence around the backyard (and the giant extension to the old house),

I don't know these new neighbors, but I strongly dislike them.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:52 AM on August 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

They are actually nice enough people, my mom is friendly with them. They just wanted a more private backyard. The extension is kind of ugly, but at least they didn't knock down the original house, and given it was a 1920 bungalow and they have several kids, it's understandable why they wanted more space. Still makes me a bit sad that everything got bulldozed (it was split into two lots and a McMansion went up on the other one.)
posted by tavella at 11:58 AM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

He's a retired federal judge. Anybody who sues him on some attractive nuisance angle is going to have their work cut out for them.

Well, that would depend on the facts of the case, wouldn't it. Some of the comments here suggest that the doctrine of attractive nuisance is a concept dreamed up to keep people from building swimming pools, and that you install one at your peril unless you are a retired judge with years of legal experience.

Typically, an element of an attractive nuisance is that "the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or to otherwise protect the children." That doesn't strike me a too high a bar.
posted by layceepee at 12:00 PM on August 15, 2017

Faith in humanity restored. Thank you.
posted by soakimbo at 9:26 PM on August 15, 2017