The Minardi family of Odessa goes viral for their Gun-shaped swimming in Florida

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that The Minardi family of Odessa goes viral for their Gun-shaped swimming in Florida.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Jones said, according to Louis Minardi. Knowing Minardi’s background as a gunsmith, Jones showed up with plans modeled after a Ruger Blackhawk, a 1950s-era, Western-style revolver characterized by its long barrel and known for its durability and accuracy.

“You swim your lap down the barrel,” Louis Minardi said Jones told him. “It gets deeper on that end. You can flip over from it, and then you can swim back.”

Jones pleaded with him to let him build the gun pool, Louis Minardi said. He said he was tired of building kidney-shaped pools, a staple of Florida’s backyards. Minardi agreed — provided he stayed within his project’s budget.

The pool has been resurfaced over the years, but the shape remains.

Louis Minardi said the pool is popular among family and friends, who have used it to teach their children how to swim.

Louis Minardi stopped gunsmithing in the late ‘80s, due to increasing insurance rates for gun warranties. He became more involved with the family-owned taxi service and has run that business ever since.

Still, gun education remains important to him. He said he’s taken his children and grandchildren hunting since they were very young. He said he did not allow them to use a gun unless they were closely supervised and had proper training.

The oddly shaped pool was built in the 1980s after Minardi wouldn’t let his kids swim in a nearby alligator- and snake-infested lake without wife Raye watching over them with a shotgun from the deck, according to the University of Florida’s student news service.

An old high school friend and contractor convinced Minardi to let him create the custom 55-foot-long pool.

The plans that late friend and contractor Albert Jones III presented were of a 1950s-era, Western-style Ruger Blackhawk, which is known for its long barrel. Jones even detailed the tiles on the pool’s bottom to distinguish the firearm’s different components, including the trigger and ammunition chamber.

“You swim your lap down the barrel,” Minardi recalled Jones, who died in 2010, telling him. “It gets deeper on that end. You can flip over from it, and then you can swim back.”

The pool had been resurfaced over the years, though its shape remains the same.

Minardi, who opened a now-closed gunsmithing business in 1976 and had his first gun – a double-barrel shotgun – in middle school, said the pool has been a gathering place for friends and family, who have used it to teach their kids how to swim.

Minardi said he opened a gunsmithing business with his brother after attending classes in 1976.

In the 1980s, Minardi and his wife, Raye, decided they wanted a pool. They lived on a lake that contained snakes and alligators, and Raye Minardi would have to watch over their children swimming from the dock with a shotgun, she said.

The family wanted a pool at least 40 feet long to allow for laps. After Louis Minardi contacted Jones, who owned A.H. Jones Pools Inc., the idea was born for the gun pool — all 55 feet of it.