Sunday, May 6, 2012

Breaking The Speed Limit In Hurst's Chisholm Park Wondering Why Fort Worth's Public Pools Are Dry

Do Not Go Over 16 in Chisholm Park
I was up north in the bustling suburb of Hurst today, to go to ALDI.

Before ALDI I went to Chisholm Park to go on a relaxing walk.

On my vehicle's analog speedometer I can easily tell when I'm going 5, 10, 15, 25...etc. But I had trouble telling if I was going over Chisholm Park's speed limit of 16.

I need a speedometer with a digital readout.

I like Hurst's Chisholm Park. Multiple scenes of a mom and dad and kids, often with a dog or two, having fun fishing, picnicking, walking, talking.

When I was a kid my parental units often took me and my siblings to parks. During summer pretty much every weekend we'd take off to go camping at one of Washington or Oregon's State Parks. Once a year we'd go on a long road trip vacation, to places like Yellowstone, Disneyland and Tijuana.

I was still a kid when I realized that many of my peers were not as blessed as I in the parental units taking them to parks, and on trips, department.

When I used to go to the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge I'd often see scenes of a mom and dad, with kids, watching the prairie dogs, walking the trails. I more than once thought to myself that this does not look like a family that goes on trips to Yellowstone and Disneyland.

Hurst Chisholm Aquatic Center
And then Fort Worth started charging an admission fee to this park, which should be a free to enter amenity for all the people who live in Fort Worth.

But, Fort Worth decided to reduce the number of visitors by charging that admission fee. I've not been back, as my own little protest. And I mention my disgust semi-regularly.

In Hurst's Chisholm Park, among many other amenities, you will find the City of Hurst's Chisholm Aquatic Center. A large area with large pools and water slides.

Fort Worth closed all its public pools due to alleged budget woes. Yet, somehow Fort Worth found $3 million for a little pedestrian bridge across the Trinity River. And almost a $1 billion for something called the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. But, no public money for public pools.

No public pools might be cool if Fort Worth had a lake or two with a public swimming beach or two, but it does not.

And yet somehow Fort Worth still manages to be the envy of the rest of the planet.

Part of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle is a little lake, that has shrunk over time, to now being small pond size. If this little pond were engineered to be filled with clean swimmable water, surrounded by sandy beaches, well, then the silent majority of Fort Worth citizens would actually be getting something that benefited them from the TRV Boondoggle.

But that won't happen, because it ain't the Fort Worth Way.

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