Some People Don't Know When They Are Winning!

Tonight I attended the Park and Recreation Board meeting. The board is an advisory panel to the town's City Commission.
It was a HOT meeting tonight because the big issue on the agenda was consideration of a plan to build a BMX track and skate park. There were 16 teen-age boys there with their skateboards in hand. They were doing fine, listening to the discussion, until they got bored. Actually, they didn't get bored until two idiot mothers who hadn't been paying attention to the fact that their kids were winning what they wanted started mouthing off about "why can't we use so-and-so's big parking lot they never use it the kids have no place to play life is unfair."

Um. Duh. Check the minutes, please. A panel of adults had JUST finished presenting a proposal for the perfect location for both interests, in a city park near the edge of town where visitors to the city could easily congregate for BMX events -- city, regional and national events. The city is even agreeing to provide aerial photos and help the sponsors lay out the track. The City Manager promised it! There's already a junior baseball league that meets and plays in this park which has been interested in expanding a baseball field on the far side of the park, away from this proposed track and skate park. Every possible thing sponsors presented was agreed to. The park panel just asked the apparent leaders of this to come to the next meeting with enough of a plan that the panel could vote for a motion to present it to the City Commission with enough information and enough of a plan to get it passed.

Yeah. OK ladies, repeat after me. When you are ahead, shut up. Stop talking about how you just moved here from Perry where they couldn't get anything going for the kids there EITHER and they let an application for a grant expire. Hello! Listen the the old bald man who JUST said "This is a great idea and the best plan that has been presented. The location is well suited for this and the outlay would be minimal for the city. If we had to buy land, we probably would not be able to do what we can do in this park for you. It's a win-win situation."

Mom the Second, who also apparently has hearing problems, pipes up to say "So who is in charge of making this decision? I mean, who is the man who says yes or no?"

I refer you back to the old bald man you just interrupted. Just hush, OK? Don't start moaning about how you give your kid $20 in the morning, tell him to get something to eat and drink, and then don't see him until it's supper time. I'll call DHS on you if you don't just hush, OK? You're WINNING. Bald man is THE MAN to get you what you want if you're smart enough to listen. So LISTEN!

Despite these two intrusions, the plan will go forward to get the kids and the adults who are behind them everything they want. Several members of the panel are actually going to take their weekend and drive 250+ miles round trip to go to Yukon to see a BMX competition and get a better idea what a track takes and how the operation can be successful. In late August we're going to see a skate park company bring a sample park to town and set it up on the parking lot behind the library so the kids can try it out and decide what kind of materials they like the best and the advantages of concrete and modular systems, so they get what they want most!

OK ladies, quit asking about the abandoned school tennis courts. They've been turned into teachers' parking lots. They aren't what your kids want and need for skateboarding. Let us build them their dream track, OK? We want them to have a place to play, too. Ask the old bald man. He still has the scar from the time when he nailed his skates to a board and rode it down the spillway at the lake. Was doing well, he said, until he hit the sand at the bottom of the ramp.