Have you recently enjoyed childhood memories about happy hours spent in a public swimming pool?   The Reflecting Pool kerfuffle in Washington, DC should stir up old recollections.  Take a swim down Memory Lane.   

When you were young, the Lifeguard would periodically blow his whistle and yell either “Everybody out of the pool” or “Everybody into the pool.”   

The Lifeguard’s authority could not be questioned, or you could be banished to the blistering pavement.  Also – No Running!

The turmoil with DC’s Reflecting Pool brings back memories.  America has been ordered out of the Reflecting Pool as it is now safely behind fencing and armed guards.     

The Reflecting Pool is a mess,    happy green algae festooned with blue sheets of paint  Depending on your political beliefs,  the cause of the uglification of the Reflecting Pool varies:  Blue paint on the bottom of a shallow pool heats the water creating a Petrie Dish of pond scum,  or it is algae planted by Biden,  or a bad paint job done under a no bid contract by a buddy of the President,  or vandals with box cutters,  or using the drained pool as a parade ground for driving a Presidential motorcade across.  

Take your choice.   Reality is in the politics of the beholder.  We don’t need no stinkin’ reality.  We got our political opinion. 

Pools of water have a long history of causing troubles.  Consider our old pal Narcissus from Greek mythology.   He had so much trouble with a pool of water that he turned into a flower and a psychiatric disorder.  Narcissus was a Pretty Boy.  

He was so pretty that everyone, both male and female, fell in love with him.   He lived in a time before mirrors so he didn’t know how pretty he really was.   One day, a lady nymph named Echo saw him and fell in love.  

Echo had previously gotten into trouble with the Goddess Juno for covering up Zeus’ girlfriends.   Juno laid a curse on Echo that prevented her from talking, except for being able to repeat the last few words of what someone said to her.

The love-smitten Echo tried to hug Narcissus, but he was irritated by her constant repeating of his words.  He wasn’t buying what Echo was selling.  

Echo, broken-hearted after being spurned by her Pretty Boy, developed an eating disorder.  She wasted away until her body was gone.    All that was left was her voice doing echoes for eternity.  Another spurned Narcissus lover was a man named Ameinias.  Like Echo, he was hot to trot with Narcissus, who refused to have anything to do with him. 

Ameinias even wrote a poem for Narcissus that Andy Griffith once quoted: “Sure as the vine twines round the stump/ You are my darling sugar lump.”  It didn’t work.   Ameinias did not cotton to rejection.  He asked Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, to put a spell on Narcissus.  Her spell caused Narcissus to never be able to be loved by a person he loved. 

As luck would have it, one hot day Narcissus worked up a powerful thirst.  He found a pond in the forest and stopped to take a drink.   When he looked into the water he saw his reflection for the very first time.   

He immediately fell in love with his reflection thinking it was the Prettiest Boy he had ever seen.  Every time he tried to touch his own reflection, the ripples in the water caused the reflection to disappear. This narcissism mutated into the annoying ad for eye drops announcing: “I can’t take my eyes off my eyes,” and Frankie Valli’s song: “I’m just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of me.”

Narcissus couldn’t leave the side of the pond because he was so in love with his own reflection.  

He neither ate nor slept for staring at his own reflection.   This ultimately led to his demise.   He shrank down until he became a flower called a Narcissus lily or daffodil (which you can buy at most garden centers).

 Psychiatrists stole Narcissus’s name for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is used for a patient diagnosed as “arrogant, self-centered, demanding who often has high self-esteem and may believe they are superior or special compared to other people.  

They seem to need excessive praise and admiration, and they may react poorly to perceived criticism.”

Gentle Reader, you decide if our current Fearless Leader in DC might have some things in common with Narcissus in connection with the Reflecting Pool and possibly other issues.   

As the mutant turtles in the Reflecting Pool say: “It’s later than you think.” 

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)