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In the early 1900s the University converted part of a network of
conduits, dams and small reservoirs into a recreation facility known
as the Men’s
Swimming Pool or the Canyon Pool. Designed by Sanitary Engineering
Professor Charles Gilman Hyde (who later also served as Dean of Men) the
pool was, as the name implies, sex-segregated — limited to use by male
students and faculty. Campus women had their own pool, surrounded by a
fence, at old Hearst Hall (in the vicinity of present day Wurster Hall)
and were not allowed to intrude on the men-only precinct of Strawberry
Canyon.
The Men's Swimming Pool was an irregularly shaped concrete pool with a
narrow surrounding deck and a few simple diving platforms. Off to one
side was a shed used as a changing room. The pool existed as a men-only
facility from 1911 through 1943, when it was finally opened to use by
women. (It was replaced by the current pool complex in 1959.) But for
most of the years of its existence the pool in Strawberry Canyon was a
resort for all-male exercise and relaxation. Perhaps inevitably the
pool became wreathed in a homosocial haze, and it appears as a
highly-eroticized corner of the campus in works of literature from the
period.
In Clarkson Crane’s novel The Western Shore, set in
Berkeley in 1919, a homosexual English professor named Philip Burton
enjoys gazing at the male students who relax in the afternoon sunlight:
A few days later the weather grew even warmer and
Tom began to go nearly every afternoon to the swimming-pool up
Strawberry Canyon, where he would lie on the warm pavement and dive
occasionally into the greenish water. Somehow he felt better under the
blue sky, dozing in the heat. The spring-board would be thudding, there
was always splashing in the pool, and, when he opened his eyes, he would
see lithe tanned bodies all around him, glistening with water. While he
lay there, in the hollow between green hills, his unpleasant thoughts
would fade and finally go away entirely, and only a blurred sequence of
colors and sounds would traverse his mind, all suffused with the warmth
of the concrete on which he was lying.
One afternoon he heard some one say: “Hello there, Tom,” and, having
opened his eyes gradually, saw Burton, in swimming trunks, standing
above him. For a moment he was silent. Then he replied: “Hello, Phil.”
The instructor’s body was burned pink. He sat down on the warm stone
beside Tom.
“I didn’t know you came up here often,” he began, laying down a book
that he had brought with him.
“I’ve been here several days,” Tom answered.
He lowered his eyes, planning to say no more, for an abhorrence of
Burton swept over him. He loathed this stocky man with the drawling
voice and brown mustache who sat beside him. But half through
indolence, because he could not sustain hatred, he said, even before
Burton had spoken again:
“It’s sorta nice to lay around in the sun.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” exclaimed Burton, tossing up his head, “perfectly
lovely. I’ve often thought that this is about as much like an Athenian
palæstra as anything one could find to-day.” He paused and added: “And
then the hills, of course, and the sky and all that.”
Several boys were diving, one after the other; spray flashed in the
sunlight. Tom thought that Burton was just as he used to be in the
army, always talking of things no one knew about, and he felt briefly
the same amused tolerance he had had for him then. He looked now at the
instructor, who was staring at a tanned youth just come from the
water....
He heard a voice he recognized and saw that three or four fellows from
the house, Tony Barragan, Milton Granger, and one or two others, were
going into the shed to undress. Burton said:
“I want you and Ethel to come up for tea again some afternoon.”
Tom finally answered: “All right.”
Burton again was staring at the boy near him who lay prone, forehead
resting on brown arms. At last he said:
“How’s your work going, Tom?”
“Oh, all right.”
He did not like to talk of the studying he had not done. It rose
before him, insurmountable; he felt a sick dread....
He heard Tony Barragan’s voice somewhere in the pool: the fellows from
the house would probably see him. He began to think that he would go
away and dress, for he could not stand being near Burton.
“I have to dress pretty soon,” he announced.
“Going to see Ethel this evening?” asked Burton. “Give her my regards,
if you do.”
Tom was silent. At that moment Milton Granger pulled himself from the
water half onto the concrete bank and leaned there, dripping.
“Hello, there, Tom.”
“Hello, Milt.”
“It’s great up here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Sadly Tom remembered that there had been a time when he wished to
introduce Milton to Phil Burton, because he thought that they would like
each other, both being literary. He hoped now that Burton had not heard
him say “Milt,” for he might intrude. But he noticed that the
instructor had suddenly turned his back toward Milton Granger. A moment
longer the freshman hung there on the edge of the pool. Then he shook
the water from his hair and cried: “So long, Tom, see you later,” and
disappeared with a splash.
Burton stood up.
“I think I’ll go in and dress,” he said.
Filled with sudden hatred, Tom exclaimed:
“Oh, by the way, Ethel told me about that concert you and she went to.”
He thought that Burton seemed agitated. Standing there, the instructor
asked:
“Who was that boy?”
Tom smiled at the fellow’s attempt to change the subject.
“Milton Granger,” he answered, as dryly as he could, “one of the
freshman at the house. I think I mentioned him to you one day.”
“Oh,” Burton stood without moving. Then he said: “Well, I really must
go,” and he walked away.
In a poem published in 1930, a weary stockbroker fondly recalls his
halcyon days as a Cal student at Strawberry Pool, and the fellowship of
one particular friend:
Strawberry Pool
Robert Reid Lee
You will remember Strawberry Pool
With a sick longing, when its cool
Green bottom has given place to baking
Pavements, and you have no more slaking
Of that long thirst that drew us up
(The years will snatch away the cup),
That drew us up the steep road past
The broom, whose yellow shadow cast
Upon the dust made it more white;
Past the gaping stadium, quite
Empty then of its shrieking throngs,
To which that one fall day belongs.
With a turn to the left and down the ridge,
Across the narrow wood bridge
Where the stream pushes the ferns aside
To jump the rocks where the crayfish hide;
Past the nettles that sting unwary
Hands, the lupin and strawberry,
On we went, my old companion,
Under the hills that rimmed the canyon,
And where the golden-hearted, red-lipped
Last wild rose opened, we stripped
The dusty clothes from the sticky skin,
Mounted the tower , and dove in
Down the long steep airy slant
With sharply indrawn breath and pant
Into the jade green sun-flecked deep,
Making the frozen white drops leap,
Shattered from the molten blue,
(For green turned color at feel of you),
While sick flesh shrank from the chilly clutch
For a moment, but warming to the touch,
Carressed the green, the blue, the white,
The strawberry, the sharp sunlight,
And romped with thunder of hand and foot
Past the jutting branch and root;
Wearying of that, then to clamber
To the bank, and feel the amber
Bite of the sun that filtered through
The leaves between himself and you.
With feet apart, one hand on one knee,
Pound the head with the other to free
The ears from water. Then lie still
With grateful contentment….Ah! You will
Remember (the years will snatch away
The cup), and on that dreary day,
When the air is harsh and dry
That makes the fat flesh creep and sigh
On brittle bones shaken by the din
No door keeps out but always in,
While squinting hard at tape and ticker
Suddenly there will come a flicker
Of sun across the shadowed wall.
You will look up, and start, and call,
But get no answer, for the years
Will snatch away the cup. No tears
Will fall, perhaps, but there will be,
Always and always, memory.
Links on This Page
Read More About It
- Clarkson Crane. The Western Shore (Salt Lake City : Peregrine
Smith Books, 1925, c1985), p. 249-254.
-
Robert Reid Lee, “Strawberry Pool,” in University of California
Chronicle, October, 1930 (Berkeley : University of California
Press).
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