West Station. That's what we called one of the most marvelous places of my childhood. Actually, it was a small town named West. It wasn't in west Texas. It was a 20 minute drive north of my hometown of Waco. A place where we had to slow down on our way to Fort Worth to visit my aunt and uncle on Sundays. That was until I-35 was built just west of the town. It was a small Czech community known as West Station because it had a train station. The community was known for it's bakeries, German and Czech restaurants, and a family owned meat market that slaughtered it's own cattle and made delicious sausages and lunch meats. But when we asked to go West Station, we were asking to go to the big swimming pool in the town. It was huge! It was the second biggest outdoor pool in the state, And had everything. There was a kiddie pool at the front. The water was only a foot or foot and a half deep with a little "island" in the middle you could sit on or jump off of. A 3 foot high wall separated it from the main pool below and it's water ran into the big pool. At first, I was only allowed in the kiddie pool unless Mom or Dad was with me. It was too deep, starting at 3 feet and stepping down to 11 feet at the other end. At the 6 foot depth in the middle of the pool, was a big red metal top that floated on the surface secured to the bottom by a big chain. It had a wheel in the middle to hold on to or make it spin. It was quite a feat to climb on it. And there were 4 diving boards. The smallest was a foot high spring board on the side at the 8 foot depth. At the far end of the pool, in the 11 foot depth were 3 boards. The first was 2 feet high,,the second 6 feet high,,and the third was 10 feet high. It was a rite of passage to progress to the higher boards as you got older. And the 10 foot board was really high and took a lot of courage to jump from. The depth was a big draw, too. It was the deepest pool in the area and all the neighborhood guys had frog feet(swim fins), and goggles. We would have contests to see how fast we could get to the bottom and how long we could stay there. The pool had a snack bar with covered picnic tables inside and outside the fence. We could get to West Station 2 ways,,,on a Sunday afternoon family outing,,or a neighborhood caravan during the week when one or two of the mothers would pack all the kids into their cars for a day of fun. Any time we went there it meant a stop by the meat market to pick up some ring baloney, rat cheese, crackers, and Big Red soda water(soft drink invented in Waco.) And a stop at The Village Bakery for some homemade, unsliced bread and collaches. Talk about good eating! Any trip to West Station was a treat and the neighborhood kids could wrangle maybe 3 or 4 trips during the summer. Since Dad liked the place, we might make 2 or 3 Sunday visits during the summer. A trip to West Station was always a treat and I cherish the memories of it.