The boys love spray parks -- those soft-floored playgrounds full of devices that squirt, spray, splash and dump water on the children (or adults) cavorting through them. And the city of Dallas loves them as safer, lower cost alternatives to swimming pools.
They’re great ways to tempt kids outdoors for exercise and sunshine, and I’ll provide links to those operating this season in Dallas and some neighboring cities. But they can’t completely replace conventional swimming pools, for the simple reason that you can’t learn to swim in a spray park.
You also can’t row a cardboard boat across a swimming pool. Yes, cardboard boat races are happening July 13 at Samuell Grand Pool, 3201 Samuell Blvd., in Dallas. There’s a $15 entry fee per boat (holding up to six people). Judging will be based on creativity, team spirit and speed -- with a Titanic Award for the best of those that don’t make it all the way across the pool. Contact Elisabeth at 214-670-1515 for information, or download the registration form at www.dallasaquatics.org/.
For those with or without cardboard, Dallas operates offers a variety of water safety and swim programs at $30 for eight lessons, and has a scholarship fund to help those who need financial assistance. To request financial aid, click on www.dallasaquatics.org/community-pools/.
See class schedules and specifics under “swimming pools” at www.dallasparks.org/. Dallas pools will be open through August 12.
There’s also a list of Dallas city pools, with hours and contact information, at the site. When I checked the Dallas Parks site, it mentioned 22 pools, but the city is actually operating 16 this summer, plus one -- at Fretz Park -- only open for swimming lessons. The Lake Highlands pool also has an associated spray park. (Unfortunately, my Ridgewood neighborhood spray park is closed for repairs.)
The seven available spray parks are also listed at the Dallas Parks site. Spray parks are open through Labor Day weekend, September 4.
For public swimming pools in Richardson, see
www.cor.net . (Note: Arapaho pool at Heights Recreation Center is closed; Glenville Pool includes a spray park).
For swimming pools in Garland, see www.garlandparks.com/. For Mesquite, see www.cityofmesquite.com/pard/index.php/.
But even if you know how to swim, please wear a life vest if you are boating. Local search and rescue volunteer Susannah Charleson mentions that, because Texas lakes are man-made, they are full of submerged trees that can entangle even the best swimmers.
(Charleson is a Dallas area writer whose memoir of her search and rescue dogs, Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, is available at www.amazon.com and www.BN.com/. You don’t want to turn up as a sad example in her next book.)
Showing posts with label Scent of the Missing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scent of the Missing. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wordcraft -- The importance of being employed
It’s a fact of writing life that most writers cannot support themselves solely through their writing. Sound bad? It’s actually great!
Because jobs don’t just pay the rent, they give us something to write about. The presence of raw material for characters, plots and setting is so essential that even if we don’t need a paycheck, we should consider getting a job. Even a nonpaying one.
Consider Dallas-area writer Susannah Charleson. She’s worked actual paying “day jobs” -- college professor, flight instructor, radio and TV broadcaster. But the material in her 2010 nonfiction bestseller, Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, comes from her volunteer work as a canine search-and-rescue team member.
Ms. Charleson recently worked with the actors and crew of the TV version of Scent of the Missing, in which she’ll have an Alfred Hitchcock-type cameo with Ponchatoula German Shepherd Smokey, shown in the accompanying photo by Smokey’s trainer Ed Sanders. Her next book, The Possibility Dogs, is due out in 2013.
What’s her insight on the symbiosis between writers and real-life experience?
“Writers have the opportunity to observe and interpret second-hand,” she said, “as well as a chance to get out in the world and do a thing and translate those experiences directly. Both are valuable, but often, I find, it’s the voice of genuine, first-hand experience that makes your work unique. There are a thousand bystanders for every person stepping up. Getting in there and living an engaged life makes the writing richer.”
Scent of the Missing follows her transition from searching crime scenes from the air (an extension of her work as a flight instructor) to the not as glamorous as it sounds work of ground and water searches with dogs.
“Three to seven training hours a week,” she wrote, listing the requirements for search-and-rescue (SAR) work. “Plus expected home study, plus emergency calls. . . One friend asked, ‘Does it pay well?’”
(The answer was, not at all, in dollars.)
Like a thread through her story runs the story of the dogs, especially the golden retriever, Puzzle, she trained in rescue work, and whose picture adorns the book’s cover. For more about Ms. Charleson and her dogs, see
http://susannahcharleson.com/ or her Facebook page. She and Puzzle tweet jointly as PuzzleCharleson.
(Next Wednesday -- Members of Southern Methodist University’s Creative Writing Program talk about life after seminars with New York agents and editors.)
Because jobs don’t just pay the rent, they give us something to write about. The presence of raw material for characters, plots and setting is so essential that even if we don’t need a paycheck, we should consider getting a job. Even a nonpaying one.
Consider Dallas-area writer Susannah Charleson. She’s worked actual paying “day jobs” -- college professor, flight instructor, radio and TV broadcaster. But the material in her 2010 nonfiction bestseller, Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, comes from her volunteer work as a canine search-and-rescue team member.
Ms. Charleson recently worked with the actors and crew of the TV version of Scent of the Missing, in which she’ll have an Alfred Hitchcock-type cameo with Ponchatoula German Shepherd Smokey, shown in the accompanying photo by Smokey’s trainer Ed Sanders. Her next book, The Possibility Dogs, is due out in 2013.
What’s her insight on the symbiosis between writers and real-life experience?
“Writers have the opportunity to observe and interpret second-hand,” she said, “as well as a chance to get out in the world and do a thing and translate those experiences directly. Both are valuable, but often, I find, it’s the voice of genuine, first-hand experience that makes your work unique. There are a thousand bystanders for every person stepping up. Getting in there and living an engaged life makes the writing richer.”
Scent of the Missing follows her transition from searching crime scenes from the air (an extension of her work as a flight instructor) to the not as glamorous as it sounds work of ground and water searches with dogs.
“Three to seven training hours a week,” she wrote, listing the requirements for search-and-rescue (SAR) work. “Plus expected home study, plus emergency calls. . . One friend asked, ‘Does it pay well?’”
(The answer was, not at all, in dollars.)
Like a thread through her story runs the story of the dogs, especially the golden retriever, Puzzle, she trained in rescue work, and whose picture adorns the book’s cover. For more about Ms. Charleson and her dogs, see
http://susannahcharleson.com/ or her Facebook page. She and Puzzle tweet jointly as PuzzleCharleson.
(Next Wednesday -- Members of Southern Methodist University’s Creative Writing Program talk about life after seminars with New York agents and editors.)
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wordcraft -- Resolution 4: Pay it forward
’Tis the season for giving -- and, maybe, tax deductions. And, like making resolutions, giving doesn’t have to be painful. Some of my favorite sites are asking for funds now, and when many join together, a little can become a lot.
Duotrope’s Digest, http://www.duotrope.com/, states that if each of its current users and subscribers contributed $6.01 for the year, it would meet its goal to keep the site free.
Duotrope is my go-to place to find publishers for my fiction. It’s a favorite of many other writers as well. Even the occasional cranky ones who gripe about the overabundance of statistics. Or the fallibility of self-reported statistics. But I can live with the knowledge that five writers got acceptances to a collection I’m aiming for without reporting their information to Duotrope. It may sound like I work for Duotrope, but I don’t. I only subscribe and use.
A few years ago I would have been embarrassed to admit to another of my now-favorite sites -- Wikipedia. Now, like the print encyclopedias I used to buy, it’s a first stop for research. Often pedestrian and seldom the last stop, but always useful. And it’s looking for funding, too.
You’ve probably seen the appeals from article writers and even Ward Cunningham, who invented the wiki as a website whose users can easily modify it. I clicked on one of the links and used my PayPal account to make a donation. (Other forms of payment are accepted.)
Another of my favorite sites is Wikimedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/ , filled with non-copyrighted “clip art” to use when I don’t have a photograph of my own for a blog
post. Wikimedia shelters under the same umbrella as Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation. This is a nonprofit organization whose donations may be deductible as charitable contributions in the United States.
(Duotrope is not established as a nonprofit and contributions to it are only deductible as possible business expenses. But in either case, contact your tax adviser or the U.S. Internal Revenue Service,
http://www.irs.gov/.)
Finally, in keeping with my favorite price for anything -- free -- there are ways to give back to our writing community that only cost a few minutes of time. One suggestion from a former mentor, Susannah Charleson (author of the book on search and rescue dogs, Scent of the Missing), is to write a review on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/, for writers who have inspired us. Or if you belong to a professional site such as LinkedIn, offer to write a recommendation for someone -- writer, teacher, editor -- whose work you admire. And show up for free readings and discussions in your community.
Happy New Year and keep writing!
(Next Wednesday -- Writing conferences in 2012)
Duotrope’s Digest, http://www.duotrope.com/, states that if each of its current users and subscribers contributed $6.01 for the year, it would meet its goal to keep the site free.
Duotrope is my go-to place to find publishers for my fiction. It’s a favorite of many other writers as well. Even the occasional cranky ones who gripe about the overabundance of statistics. Or the fallibility of self-reported statistics. But I can live with the knowledge that five writers got acceptances to a collection I’m aiming for without reporting their information to Duotrope. It may sound like I work for Duotrope, but I don’t. I only subscribe and use.
A few years ago I would have been embarrassed to admit to another of my now-favorite sites -- Wikipedia. Now, like the print encyclopedias I used to buy, it’s a first stop for research. Often pedestrian and seldom the last stop, but always useful. And it’s looking for funding, too.
You’ve probably seen the appeals from article writers and even Ward Cunningham, who invented the wiki as a website whose users can easily modify it. I clicked on one of the links and used my PayPal account to make a donation. (Other forms of payment are accepted.)
Another of my favorite sites is Wikimedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/ , filled with non-copyrighted “clip art” to use when I don’t have a photograph of my own for a blog
post. Wikimedia shelters under the same umbrella as Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation. This is a nonprofit organization whose donations may be deductible as charitable contributions in the United States.
(Duotrope is not established as a nonprofit and contributions to it are only deductible as possible business expenses. But in either case, contact your tax adviser or the U.S. Internal Revenue Service,
http://www.irs.gov/.)
Finally, in keeping with my favorite price for anything -- free -- there are ways to give back to our writing community that only cost a few minutes of time. One suggestion from a former mentor, Susannah Charleson (author of the book on search and rescue dogs, Scent of the Missing), is to write a review on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/, for writers who have inspired us. Or if you belong to a professional site such as LinkedIn, offer to write a recommendation for someone -- writer, teacher, editor -- whose work you admire. And show up for free readings and discussions in your community.
Happy New Year and keep writing!
(Next Wednesday -- Writing conferences in 2012)
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