A century ago, municipal public swimming pools helped foster social reform.

Originally pools were melting pots where blacks, whites and immigrants interacted. Men and women, however, swam on separate days.

The dynamics changed after World War I. Pools went from bathhouses to leisure destinations, complete with sand and chairs for sunbathing. Cities across the country joined in a construction craze, building pools like Fairgrounds Park Pool in St. Louis that could accommodate thousands of swimmers at a time.

That was then. Fast forward to the early 21st Century, when the bold initiatives of yesteryear have been subverted by the modern-day wet-n-wild that is the average water park:

Truly, at the water park there was a meemaw looking woman wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts with her “hard-as-a-rock” breasts staring right at me at every turn-style. Meemaw looked like she just got out of Jed Clampet’s truck and was on her way to a senior citizen porn audition. If she could afford those breasts (and fake teeth), then why couldn’t she splurge on a bathing suit?

Not only did open wounds and gnarly toenails put me off my feed, but the smokers who punctuated their nasty habit with a “hocka-pa-tooey” on the ground in front of me completely grossed me out. Walking behind Carruso (I know that’s his name because it was tattooed across the entire span of his upper back) and trying to make sure my asthmatic son avoids the smoke billowing out of Carruso’s body, I stop in my tracks as Carruso hocks up a big loogey and spits it on to the cement where the entire water park population walks BAREFOOTED.

And you actually have to pay admission to get into these liquid-borne germ farms, versus the free pass at public pools. So much for water as a unifying medium.