No PNW pics today.
Which means no new photos of scenery of the Pacific Northwest today, featuring David, Theo and Ruby.
I recently opined that the PNW pics of David, Theo and Ruby were my new favorite thing. Except seeing such does make me a bit homesick.
So, this morning's Tacoma email did not have any photos of David, Theo and Ruby having outdoor fun, but it did include photos of David, Theo and Ruby having some indoor fun.
The explanatory text in the email explained that the kids had taken their parental units to a new Tacoma Metroparks facility, with a swimming pool, which is just part of a "giant new community center in an East Tacoma neighborhood which really needed it."
A modern American town building a giant new community center in part of the town needing such put me in mind of another American town. More about that later in this blogging.
But first, I must point out that above that is Ruby climbing a climbing wall in this giant new community center. You can see Theo a bit higher on the wall than Ruby.
And in the above photo we see Theo and David and one of their friends up super high on the climbing wall. I have never climbed a climbing wall. Climbing walls have always looked a bit scary to me, even though one is tethered to a rope obviating the danger of falling.
And here we see the boys in something called the Vortex Pool. I am guessing due to the vortex word that the water in this pool must circulate creating a vortex whirlpool of some sort.
And here we see Ruby shooting out of a tube which apparently is part of a slide which looked weird to the parental units, but which the kids indicated was awesome.
And now back to that which I to alluded previously.
Tacoma is a modern American city. Rubes in less modern parts of America would refer to Tacoma dismissively as a liberal town, full of progressives and democrat socialist sorts.
Tacoma has multiple incredibly well done parks, including one of the biggest in the world, that being Point Defiance Park. There is a Wikipedia article about Point Defiance Park.
There is no park in Fort Worth with a Wikipedia article about it. Fort Worth has a population over 800,000 and is sadly lacking in parks and park amenities. Tacoma's population is a little over 200,000. You could fit all of Fort Worth's city parks into Tacoma's Point Defiance Park and still have a lot of land left over.
Yes, I know I am always being critical of Fort Worth. Well, I lived in the town for several years. It did not take long for multiple problems with the town to bother me. Such as the craptacular quality of Fort Worth's city parks. Each month I return to Fort Worth, and DFW, and am freshly reminded that Fort Worth is not a modern American town.
For instance, there is Fort Worth's lack of public pools. Years ago Fort Worth closed its few public pools, due to supposed budget woes.
How does a modern American town like Tacoma have multiple public pools, such as the one photo documented above, or the outdoor wave pool I had fun with David, Theo and Ruby in back in August of 2017? I blogged about this in Riding Tacoma Waves With David, Theo & Ruby. When I visit Arizona, same thing, towns with multiple public pools, some of the waterpark sort.
What do these towns know about operating like a modern American town that Fort Worth can't seem to learn?
It is not like Fort Worth does not have some nearby examples of modern American towns. A short drive to the northeast, to the suburb of Hurst, and you will find Chisholm Park. With the Chisholm Aquatic Center, which is a waterpark of the sort I see in Arizona, and Tacoma, and Wichita Falls.
Yes, the little Texas town of Wichita Falls is more of a modern American town than Fort Worth. Wichita Falls has public swimming pools, such as the one in Lucy Park. And then there is the city owned Castaway Park, which is a full size waterpark, open during the warm time of the year.
And unlike Fort Worth, the Wichita Falls city parks, and there are a lot of them, have no outhouses, but do have modern restroom facilities, and running water of the wash your hands and drinking fountain sorts.
So, I see something like this new pool complex in Tacoma, and having just been in Fort Worth yesterday, eye witnessing that town's incredibly inept urban planning, and you have the reason I feel compelled to verbalize my disdain, a disdain I would never verbalize if it were not for the town's tendency to be delusional, as represented in the town's sad excuse for a newspaper, and the utterings of many of the town's officials, hence the desire to point out, over and over again, that this emperor really has no clothes, and really needs to come to grips with that embarrassing reality and do something about it...
No comments:
Post a Comment