Despite the awful things that have happened around the world in the last two weeks, our kids/nieces and nephews/ unrelated-children-of- the-future will grow up in a relatively safer world than the one that we grew up in. Cars get new safety features each model. Polio is on the way to extinction. Everyone finally agrees that smoking is bad for you.
But there is one unfortunate, distinctly American casualty of the noble quest for a safer world. When was the last time you jumped off a diving board?
Sure, diving boards have the potential to be dangerous. We’ve all heard the local pool legend of the boy who hesitated during his approach and slipped off the board and on to the wet concrete, or the girl who flew too close to the sun and crashed into the pool bottom headfirst. The combo of childhood fearlessness, wet surfaces and concrete is a cocktail of tragic eventualities.
But they’re FUN, dammit. They provide the shrimpiest kids the opportunity to be heroes. A belly flop is as impressive as a backflip when you’re ten feet above the water, and will earn you instant respect if you live to jump another day. Catching a football off of a diving board combined with a wink at your childhood crush sunning on the pool’s edge is essentially a guarantee that she’ll go to the YMCA dance with you (and much more worthy of glory than those identical viral videos of 15 frat guys catching and throwing a ball to each other before dunking it).
Take a break from catching rare Pokemon and go find a rare diving board. We miss them. Here is a Pool Party playlist.
Art by Devin Goebel . Devin is a stellar Nashville-based fine artist. This photo is from one of his installations called "Pool Party." Go look at his site. Thanks, Devin.
- Stop - Mr. Twin Sister
- Atomic Bomb - William Onyeabor
- Oh Yeah - Foxygen
- Silhouette - Julia Holter
- That's That - Cass Mccombs
- Instant Disassembly - Parquet Courts
- Written on the Forehead - P.J. Harvey
- On the Lips - Frankie Cosmos
- Halah - Mazzy Star
- Let's Go Swimming (Puppy Surf Dub) - Arthur Russell