Retired judge Davison hated all the quiet. Evy, his wife of 66 ears, had passed away, and he was lonely and sad in the months after her death. But he knew how to beat those feelings; he decided to build a pool.
Davison contacted a family-run company in Hopkins, Minnesota, that had built a pool for his previous house 40 years ago. “They did such a great job before and were still in business, so they came out and planned it,” Davison said.
Kevin, who works on new pools for the company, helped Davison with everything, from initial planning and completing contracts back in March to teaching him how to filter the water once the pool was finish in July.
“If You build it, they will come,” he thought. He invited all the neighborhood kids over to swim. Now it's not so quiet anymore.
He hears the sounds of laughter and splashing as he sits on a chair in the shade, watching happy children play in his backyard.
“I knew they'd come.” 94-yvear-old Davison told KARE-TV.
Neighbor Jessica thought the judge was joking when he talked about putting in a pool until she saw the work starting. Now she and her four kids have been regulars since the pool was finished in July.
“It's him spreading joy throughout our neighborhood for these kids.” Jessica said.
Davison's pool includes a diving board and reaches nine feet in the deep end under the board. It's especially welcome in a town that doesn't have a public outdoor pool.
Although Davison has three adult children, he doesn't have any grandchildren.
Jessica says she's told him, “You kind of adopted our whole neighborhood of kids. These are your grandkids.”
The judge's rules require that a parent or grandparent stay while the children are swimming. Once the kids leave, he likes to swim, too.
Davison tells KARE-TV that he realizes that putting in the pool didn't make a lot of financial (经济的) sense for an old man. But that didn't matter to him.
“I'm not sitting by myself looking at the walls.” he says. “What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?” The 94-year-old judge now hears laughter all day as he watches children splash in his backyard pool.
