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Waves and guns do not mix

Today I took Jordan to the wave pool at Boyce Park. Despite living in the eastern suburbs for over 11 years, I had never been there before. Since I have been a grown-up, I have not been much into public swimming; just not a fan of seeing myself in a bathing suit, plus I am a wimp when it comes to cold water. But because I took J there for swim lessons this morning and it was so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, I figured we might as well stay to swim. And by stay, I really mean leave to find an ATM (since I had only six bucks in my wallet) and then come back.

The pool is quite huge, and starts out with a large, shallow end that gradually gets deeper. The waves kick in about every 15 minutes, heralded by a carnival-like ringing and followed by excited screams. Many swimmers rent these boat-like rafts, presumably to make deep-water wave skimming more enjoyable. And much like the ocean, these swells tend to be more powerful in the shallow end, enough to knock many a child down, usually to their delight.

J and I spent most of the time in the somewhat deeper (4 feet and above) water, particularly when the waves came. We got a little exercise, and we managed to stay cool and sunburn free as far as I could tell, thanks to about a half bottle of sunscreen. The people were well-behaved. The screaming was not overwhelming. And no one stole my cell phone or wallet that I left in my beach bag.

All in all we had a really nice time. But sadly, some jag-off decided to fire shots just outside the pool in the early evening, fortunately after we were long gone. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But for the love of Pete, it might not have turned out that way.

And I don't even know what to say about that.

Sigh.
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Comments

Sherri said…
Love the photo - really great.

Scary, huh? I hate guns. I hate total hoods with no respect for children, families, etc. And, yes, I do mean "hate", and I rarely use that word. I'm sorry a fun day at the pool had to turn dicey for you.

Crime is everywhere now. I'm in Edgewood on a pretty, tree lined street, and .... our friends and neighbors - after church a couple of Sundays ago - were out on their nice deck in their very nice backyard where all of their 4 kids jump on the trampoline, sled ride, etc. all the time (my friend and her two girls - one of the girls figures prominently into a lot of my posts since she is a good friend of my daughter's), AND.... they heard like a loud pop but couldn't figure out what it was. When my daughter's friend was sweeping the deck an hour or so later, she found something metal imbedded in their deck - just a few feet from where they had been sitting. It was a bullet! The police think it was probably fired in the air since it was traveling at a relatively slow speed, but... what if it had hit someone?

Scary, scary, scary... I'm glad you and J are OK.
July 7, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Anonymous said…
Sounds like you had a good time. But geez thank goodness you missed all the commotion. What is the world coming to?
July 8, 2010 at 10:11 PM
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