Here's something you might be interested in.
By the time you get to be in your fifties, you've seen a lot of dumb things. Things individuals do, things organizations do, and--especially--things governmental entities do. As a teenager, I used to rage, marvel, wonder at dumb things; now my sense of wonder and outrage has given way to numbness. This one, though, just jumps out and grabs me every time I notice it.
It's that outhouse on pontoons in the middle of Lake Murray. Who put it there and what in the world were they thinking?! Did some person of influence once feel the need to relieve him/herself while boating and feel it too much of a bother to row in to shore? Is it the result of a kid's "accident" on a boat one day, like that urban tendency to place a traffic light or four-way stop signs at a lightly traveled intersection just because some candidate for a Darwin Award became the first in a century of usage to get hit by a car there? Is it just one of those bone-headed public sector decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time? Was it a gift from an eccentric donor who specified the money must be used only for the placement of a toilet in the middle of a drinking water source?
On Monday morning I climbed Cowles Mountain for the solstice. A clueless yuppie-type at the top asked the tour guide where we should look. I mumbled a wearily sardonic "Certainly not where the sun comes up...", and my buddy and I got a bad case of the laughs. Then the cloud cover hid the sunrise, and the whole thing turned into something of a joke. I looked over toward Lake Murray and there it was, that sore thumb in the landscape, that damned floating outhouse in the middle of the water. My nemesis. My pet peeve.
The outhouse has to be pumped out from time to time. What do they do? It would require special equipment, a floating honeywagon at least. Doesn't the danger of spillage into a municipal reservoir outweigh the benefit of allowing boaters to relieve themselves without having to paddle all of fifty yards to shore, disembark, and use the landlocked restroom facility there? How much extra does it cost to provide this extra bit of ingenuity? You can't have a dog within whatever number of feet of the lake; might contaminate the water! You can't wade at the shoreline; might contaminate the water! You certainly, though, can put a toilet in the middle of it without worry. Now, does THAT make sense or what?!
There are more important things in life, and certainly bigger problems facing this city... I mean, should we fix the crumbling infrastructure or should we build the Chargers a new stadium? That outhouse in the middle of the lake, just the same, irritates me every time I look at it. Who put it there and WHY?!
By the time you get to be in your fifties, you've seen a lot of dumb things. Things individuals do, things organizations do, and--especially--things governmental entities do. As a teenager, I used to rage, marvel, wonder at dumb things; now my sense of wonder and outrage has given way to numbness. This one, though, just jumps out and grabs me every time I notice it.
It's that outhouse on pontoons in the middle of Lake Murray. Who put it there and what in the world were they thinking?! Did some person of influence once feel the need to relieve him/herself while boating and feel it too much of a bother to row in to shore? Is it the result of a kid's "accident" on a boat one day, like that urban tendency to place a traffic light or four-way stop signs at a lightly traveled intersection just because some candidate for a Darwin Award became the first in a century of usage to get hit by a car there? Is it just one of those bone-headed public sector decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time? Was it a gift from an eccentric donor who specified the money must be used only for the placement of a toilet in the middle of a drinking water source?
On Monday morning I climbed Cowles Mountain for the solstice. A clueless yuppie-type at the top asked the tour guide where we should look. I mumbled a wearily sardonic "Certainly not where the sun comes up...", and my buddy and I got a bad case of the laughs. Then the cloud cover hid the sunrise, and the whole thing turned into something of a joke. I looked over toward Lake Murray and there it was, that sore thumb in the landscape, that damned floating outhouse in the middle of the water. My nemesis. My pet peeve.
The outhouse has to be pumped out from time to time. What do they do? It would require special equipment, a floating honeywagon at least. Doesn't the danger of spillage into a municipal reservoir outweigh the benefit of allowing boaters to relieve themselves without having to paddle all of fifty yards to shore, disembark, and use the landlocked restroom facility there? How much extra does it cost to provide this extra bit of ingenuity? You can't have a dog within whatever number of feet of the lake; might contaminate the water! You can't wade at the shoreline; might contaminate the water! You certainly, though, can put a toilet in the middle of it without worry. Now, does THAT make sense or what?!
There are more important things in life, and certainly bigger problems facing this city... I mean, should we fix the crumbling infrastructure or should we build the Chargers a new stadium? That outhouse in the middle of the lake, just the same, irritates me every time I look at it. Who put it there and WHY?!