My world turned upside down after a pilgrimage of sorts to the now flat pavers around Camp Randall in September of 2022. My friend Kyra and I had taken her new beau to see one of Madison’s biggest and boldest quirks. We could not believe our eyes when we didn’t find what we were expecting.
For the uninitiated, Camp Randall used to be visible from far up Regent Street since someone decided to commission the largest phallus statue in town. If you got up real close (which hardly anyone really did), you could tell that in fact the work was supposed to look like an obelisk made out of footballs, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odessey. Kyra and I had generally preferred to refer to this monstrosity by the middle-distance perception: the Poop Statue, since when you were too far away to see the curvature of the faux pig skin it just looked like a pile of turds.
As someone who came of age on Madison’s west side in the late 2000’s and early 10’s, this was my landmark for where the West ended, and downtown began. The toughest of Memorial High School’s cross-country runners would use the statue as an out-and-back endpoint for a long run. While I wasn’t in good enough shape in school, I once set and achieved my goal of running there from my childhood home. That run is still one of my greatest training achievements.
After the shock wore off, I was furious that this statue I loved to hate was gone. In retrospect, I was angry at myself for disconnecting from Madison. Over 10 years earlier, I had decided to chase a fancy degree, day-trip distance from the Atlantic beaches. By many markers, I had succeeded in my ambitions – I graduated with honors, and worked my way into a cushy job at a renowned company. Moreover, the benefits were unparalleled – under the right circumstances and with luck, this company could literally save your life, free of charge to employees or their dependents.
None of that stopped the feeling that something was missing. During the same trip with the failed tour, another sight sank my stomach. I stood on the rooftop of the Monona Terrace as I have done countless times before and since, only to see Lake Monona as green as freshly grown grass. I looked to this lake as if it were a sick relative, and immediately knew it was time to move home. This was the gap – in Madison, pools and beaches abound. Swimming is accessible, and generally affordable. On a good day a resident such as myself can jump in clear, comfortably warm water for the great price of free. Out in the mid-Atlantic, pools are spread out, expensive, and sometimes have months-long waiting lists.
Growing up here, it never occurred to me that swimming is a privilege. In fact, the best job I have ever had was as a City of Madison Lifeguard. I expect that I will not be able to top this gig – how else someone get paid to do things they would gladly do for free, or on vacation? In hopes of solving that conundrum, a radical series of changes was set in motion.
I quit what I’ll call Someone Else’s Dream Job, and moved into an apartment on the windward side of Lake Monona in April of 2023. Most mornings during the summer season, I’ve spent countless hours tending to my shoreline as if trying desperately to apologize for lost time. Through my efforts and stories from deeply rooted neighbors, the changes along this lakeshore are obvious. Back in my lifeguarding days around 2010, generally whatever washed up at B. B. Clarke could be cleaned without breaking a sweat. Some beaches were green some of the time, but there were also lots of days when the water looked just like what you’d expect for a lake. By that I mean, water was mostly water. Last year the volume of aquatic plants, plastic, and dead fish was torrential. Markedly, my apartment complex put in a rock wall about four years ago that touched water at the time. Before all the rains we’ve had lately, land full of thistles and other noxious weeds stretched out 10 feet or more in places.
A particular point of confusion for me is that since being back, in a town that no longer tries to staff the beaches, I’ve seen more patrons than ever visiting B.B. Has the city even noticed that these beaches have come back into fashion? I wonder what has motivated the City to keep painting and maintaining the Red Chairs. Do they want to keep the chairs intact just so that they can continue to hold the “no salvavida presente” signs?
Sometimes I wonder, how many more coats of paint will wear through until lifeguarding jobs return to this city, or if they will return at all. By my perception, more and more Madisonians have given up on the idea of swimmable lakes. Shifting baseline syndrome means that as older residents leave us, fewer and fewer residents can imagine the beaches as they were during my mother’s youth.
I fear that by our current trajectory, we will entirely forget the joys of walking out our front door to the beach and feeling the sand and water on our toes. Before that happens, it’s my personal goal to swim in our lakes as long and as much as possible until sludge or ice render them un-swimmable. If the waves of green come too early next summer, I can’t bear watching. I will instead have to shift my gaze to see some other skyline rise and fall.