My Sky Color

A forty something Dad, Husband, Engineer guy living in Western Oregon. Reflections on all things in life. A few technical things and whatever else comes along.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

You Can't Fix Stupid
On hot days in Oregon we like to go to the Sandy River. Right down the road from our house is Dabny Park. Depending on the temperature we might hit the water each evening to cool down. Our favorite stretch of the river is past the beach with the rough crowd. We ride down a rapid about 40 yards then swim to shore and do it again. Near where we do this is a rope swing and a cliff. The rope is not a quality piece of cordage. This year the swing and jump crowd land just past the rocks in the water. The cliff jumpers... are cliff jumpers. There is a 15 foot ledge and a plus 30 foot ledge. You have to be fairly drunk or be weak against the peer pressure to do it.
Every year at least one person dies every summer on the Sandy. The first was last Thursday. He did the cliff in fine belly flop fashion and the impact was too great. So the next day people are back at the cliff jumping. So the other evening we saw a teenage girl get pulled out of the water. After a couple resessitation puffs she started coughing and was back with the living. She was just swimming not jumping. So now you're thinking, why do you go there?! The boys cannot touch the water without their life jackets. They aren't flimsy around the next things but real vests.
It is sad to see these young people with life ahead of them drinking like fish then trying to breath like the fish. The river is pretty chilly and has lots of variation, like smooth slow water, fast shallow, fast deep, wide, narrow, sandy and rocky.
On a happier note the lads are picking up cans and bottles for the 5 cent deposit. They turned in a little more than one days collection for $20 today. If we can teach them to be patient and save they will be able to buy something nice at the end of the summer. If they can be patient. DMP

1 Comments:

At 3:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is astonishing and sad the amount of people that drown every summer. Is it because we so seldom get in the water, that we don't know how? Not wearing life jackets is like not wearing seatbelts - it is always mentioned in the fatal accident news items.

 

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