There was a time when you could smoke anywhere in Edgewater’s Sovereign Pool and Health Club. Men and women would stand puffing around the pool, schmoozing, eating hot dogs: that was when Bill McGuire ran the gym. Now you can only smoke over by Mr. Hahn’s chair, in the gym’s southwest corner. Mr. Hahn, who owns a liquor store nearby, does not like to be disturbed. When he is at the Sovereign, he is usually snoozing, sometimes smoking, occasionally swimming.
No Shampoo
It’s about seven in the evening, the Sovereign’s busiest time. A thin, older, bald man wearing a bright pink bathing suit and blue gloves is swimming laps. In the lane next to him is a young man, and then an older woman wearing goggles and a black one-piece. Mr. Hahn is snoozing in his chair. A pot-bellied man is watching reruns on a black-and-white television.
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“Yeah? Willowbrook Ballroom?”
“Then I would go home, eat dinner, and come back and dance until about eight o’clock at night. I’d shower, go to bed, and go to work the next day. It was great. But now they’ve cut that out. Thursday nights, they have Latin dancing. Now myself, I go out there and dance with everybody.”
NO YELLING
