Greetings! It's been a year already since the website was begun in March 1997. The idea for a website was the result of a brainstorm I had while swimming in a hotel pool in the San Diego area. I was all alone in the pool and began to think about what a wonderful asset to my life swimming has been. It had given me some wonderful memories of people and provided friends, recreation, exercise, mental therapy, and positive self-esteem; and it all started at Patton Pool. I began to wonder about the good friends from long ago: Where are they? What are they doing? Would the bonds of friendship have stretched over 30 years if they could be found? Most of all, I wondered about a couple of guys named Harry Hauck and Tom Sullivan who poured their hearts and souls into their coaching and made possible all of this to look back on; Were they still alive? Were they aware of the precious legacy of memories they had left me and others? Also running through my mind during this period was the fact that an opportunity unique in human history was available to me: the ability to publish information easily and cheaply that was accessable to over 30 million people all over the world. These two thoughts merged to produce the idea of starting a website. Before the website was begun, I decided to check the Internet to see if something had already been done. So, going to a search engine, I entered Harry Hauck, Tom Sullivan and Patton Pool. Surely a phenomenon such as the swimming program at Patton Pool must have left some documented mark out there. Nothing was found and I decided that this lack of historical mention had to come to a screeching halt. I began to visualize an actual reunion and what would be going on and structured the website to include as many of those activities as possible. Although I had a structure, there was little I personally had to put into it. All that was available to me were the Foam-Fares, a few photos from high school yearbooks, and some memories. So the website was started and I began to contact some people. I wondered what their reaction would be. Had the the Patton Pool experience made the same impact on their life? Would I get an enthusiastic response or was it too long ago for people to remember and take an interest in? The response was beyond my expectations. The website became all I originally envisioned and even more: old friendships were reestablished, those without a scrapbook now had one, and the people that gave us so much could be thanked.

Progress Report

The Patton Pool website went from non-existent to almost 500 image and text files during the first year thanks to your generous support in many ways. The first year stats:

• A complete set of restored Foam-Fares, 129 pages in all
• 69 photos
• 24 newspaper clippings and other memorabilia
• 18 people contacted

Is Your Web Page Complete?

Please take a look at your web page and see if it is complete. Is there something under all the reunion topics?:

• Contact
• Photos
• My Life After Patton
• Some Things I Remember
• Reflections

Next Year's Goals

• Find more people! Finding people can be a really daunting task; and if you want to help, please let me know and I'll give you a few sites on the Internet to help track people down.
• Increase the support for the Current Events page. Think of the Current Events page as an online newletter. It's a good place to mention things that are currently happening in your life that you would likely talk about if you ran into one of your old Patton friends. The Current Events page can provide fodder to keep the conversation going and interest in the website up.
• Continue adding new material to the website. There is plenty of room left, so dig around in that attic/basement/garage (Watch out for the spiders!) and let the whole world enjoy some of the history of Patton Pool swimming.

Thanks again for a great first year!

Ed Picard