This Pool Is Your Pool – Celebrating Stacy Pool’s 85th Year

Our neighborhood pool, Big Stacy, turns 85 this year and a bunch of folks gathered there to celebrate this morning. I was asked to sing, so I made a local version of Woody’s classic and sang it for the crowd.

This Pool Is Your Pool

This pool is your pool, this pool is my pool
From East Live Oak street to Travis Heights Elementary School
From East Side Drive to Alameda
This pool was made for you and me

As I went swimming with my mermaid daughter
We played for hours in the cooling water
Thank god we’ve got it as the summer gets hotter
This pool was made for you and me

In 1930 they built the first one
And then the Works Projects Administration
Made it bigger in ’37
This pool was made for you and me

This pool is your pool, this pool is my pool
From East Live Oak street to Travis Heights Elementary School
From East Side Drive to Alameda
This pool was made for you and me

Thanks to the city for keeping it open
Thanks to the lifeguards for keeping it going
Thanks to the water for keeping it flowing
This pool is maintained for you and me

This pool is your pool, this pool is my pool
From East Live Oak street to Travis Heights Elementary School
From East Side Drive to Alameda
This pool was made for you and me

Executive Meetings

At our weekly meetings, our boss likes to end with a question that gets us all sharing something about ourselves. Questions like:

  • What was your first job?
  • What’s your favorite TV theme song?
  • What’s one of your useless talents?

I loved this last question both because it prompted such fun answers from the team and because I got to share that one of my useless talents is that I can and regularly do make a song out of anything. So after everyone shared, I was inspired to make it into a song. Here is a rough demo recorded on my phone.

Executive Meetings

Executive meeting every week
tune in and see what’s new with the veep
they’re very important in all sorts of ways
here are a few that just might amaze

Heidi can twirl a baton in two ways
Helen can match up those colors for days
Jenn can sing all of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas
Anne makes ice water like nobody’s business

Executive meeting every week
tune and hear how scope creeps
they can do things that you never knew
too many to name but here’s just a few

Darren can wiggle his ears, did you know?
LaToya can name Golden Girls episodes
Teeyia can set up your old school hifi
And Jason can sing it and make it all rhyme

Executive people, they are the best
at doing odd things that no one expects
all of this useless talent concealed
stay tuned to see what the questions reveal

NEW SONG (DEMO): I’ll Show You

Here’s a jazzy little lovesong to Maile, my love. It struck me again recently how well she cares for Anais and me even when she’s busy, stressed and tired. She puts us first. She SHOWS us she loves us. I hope to do the same.

I’ll Show You

Hand in hand we trip down Sunday’s sidewalk
Making plans, trying on dreams together
Tell me when I hit the jackpot and
You find the lens that brings it all in focus

Day by day we make a life together
Finding  ways to stir the peanut butter
Play the play and do our role reversals
Giving way, it’s just a dress rehearsal

You don’t know how much you mean
to me my love, my one and only
I need you to see how cool you’ve been
my love… I’ll show you

Eventually, we figure out a dinner
We find a seat and it’s our favorite server
Romantically binging on guilty pleasures
You tell me, Let’s see the world together

You don’t know how much you mean
to me my love, my one and only
I need you to see how cool you’ve been
my love… I’ll show you

Hand in hand we trip down Sunday’s sidewalk
Making plans, trying on dreams together
Tell me when I hit the jackpot and
You find the lens that brings it all in focus


View lyrics with chords at https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/j-molin/ill-show-you-chords-4044748.

NEW SONG (DEMO): Just A Moment

Given this title, I reflected on the pause that I am learning can make such a big difference. This is the pause between feeling a strong emotion and acting on that feeling. Perhaps you’ve heard this advice: When you get angry, count to ten and just breath, wait for the passion to pass before doing something you’ll regret.

The same advice can be applied to a flash of fear or anxiety. As you feel the intense discomfort, notice how it peaks and begins to subside. Once you’ve noticed it you can begin to isolate the feeling from immediate action and separate the physical experience from a hot take on what it means.

This song is about that wisdom, gained from years of therapy. It’s about the triggers and traumas intense emotions bring back. It’s about applying a bit of the mindfulness I hope I am learning as I try to become a mature adult, a better husband, dad, friend and colleague.

The next level alluded to here, is to learn to separate my physical and emotional responses from what is happening in the world around me. It’s about recognizing how short-lived the chemical spike of emotions is.  When the emotion is at its most intense, the chemicals have already begun to subside. Let them subside before making a series of assumptions based on your past. Give them a moment before you make the situation worse by letting past traumas rebound and create new ones.

Just A Moment

Did he just say what I think he said?
A split second and I’m seeing red
All of a sudden it seems that I might have to fight

Well someone’s gotta say something now
This is something that I can’t allow
Now I’m starting to sweat and my chest feels tight

Just a moment… just a moment… just a moment like a meteorite
Give it a moment to burn up across the sky
Just a moment while I try not to light the dynamite

Oh my god, what did I just say?
Why did I take the bait and act that way?
I’ve been down this road and it doesn’t end well

I’m flashing back to my parent’s fights
I’m sayin anything to make it alright
If I’m gonna break the chain I’ve gotta break that spell

Just a moment… just a moment… just a moment to catastrophize
Give it a moment to burn up across the sky
Just a moment while I try not to light the dynamite

Just a moment… of atonement
Sitting with a feeling without trying to understand why
Just a moment… of postponement
To feel it in my body without some sad story applied
To see it in my mind without trying to hypothesize
Waiting for the storm to pass to take a walk and spend time outside

Every night about half-past ten
Someone lets a brood of devils in
They pour another drink and bring up things that I said/did

Sure they lie still they get to me
Playing on my insecurities
Now I need something strong just to steady my head

Just a moment… just a moment… just a moment while I try not to cry
Gimme a moment when I just want to get high
Just a moment so I can hide the dynamite
Just a moment to let it subside and feel alive
Just a moment to let it out and let in the light