The City of Alliance posted a photo of a local landmark today on Facebook:
When I went to the Sallows Military Museum for my Wednesday afternoon volunteer activity this week, we’d just had a springtime snowstorm. In the meantime, the Memorial Day preparations in the Central Park went on on schedule. Hence a fountain operating in a snowy scene!
That doesn’t come close to another anomalous moment further north. The city swimming pool is filled, in preparation for the first day of swimming, which most likely won’t be Memorial Day, the traditional first day of swimming.
The building in the back is the Jean R.A. Thomas Bathhouse, which was named for my mother, who taught Red Cross swimming in this town for 60 years.
The nickname for the pool is “Big Blue Bay”, perhaps more appropriately than ever this cold May!
That is so cool that your mother has a building named for her.
The family was esepcially pleased that it happened when she was still alive and both she and Dad were able (along with me) to attend the ceremony and picnic that followed. Two months later, Dad fell ill, ended up in the care center, where he lived the rest of his life.
This reminds me of 1978 when we lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We had friends from New Jersey visiting us. We did actually swim in the pool that day, but it was a short swim!
Cheyenne is fairly close (a about 2.5 hours) drive from where I live. It seems like they still get worse weather than we do here.
Higher altitude?
6,062 ft (1,848 m) versus 3,967 ft (1,209 m) for Alliance. Yep! Quite a difference!
Yep. I had to learn how to cook all over again when we moved there.
Yeah, high altitude baking is a trick, as is boiling water! LOL! (No kidding!)
I do remember. I had a cookbook with the changes.
We are high enough we barely have to deal with high altitude cooking issues, though one quickly learns when it’s necessary and when you can prepare things the regular way.
And I understand upstate New York had freeze warnings last night – what’s going on?!! Nature is getting even with us….
It’s going to be cool here through the holidays. That makes it nice for live flowers on graves. I won’t have to worry about them dehydrating the way the can do when we have hot weather for the holiday.
I know, mine will be dried up before I get to the cemetery! It’s broiling here!!
In previous years, I’ve had to go out to the cemetary at least once a day to drench the flowers. We’ve traditionally put out potted geraniums in my family, then transplanted them in the yard after the holiday (or left them potted). Geraniums are reasonably durable, but it can get very hot here. Also, it’s windy, which dries them out quite fast.
Wow, sixty years teaching swimming. How many lives she must have saved!!
Hard to imagine the impact of her life’s efforts. If nothing else, she taught so many people to swim, there was a need for a swimming pool…! The last 10 years she taught private lessons in swimming to children with disabilities, adapting strokes to their abilities. She especially enjoyed this part of her career.
And in the Guardian comment section they accuse Germans of “alway preparing for the winter” .. Here you can see why we do it – Winter won’t let us limit it to the months from November till February …
That’s just common sense when you live in a place where there is winter! Nothing like snow to stop things in their tracks or make simple tasks more difficult.
It was an article about the problems in Greece and the Greece would love the Germans to raise their wages, so our products would be less competitive. The commenter I answered accused the Germans about not wanting that as we always were preparing for the winter.
Reminds me of the grasshopper and the ant fable, where the grasshopper frittered away the day and the ant prepared for the future. Unfortunately, the hardships of austerity in Greece haven’t taught the right lessons, it seems…! Though it is wonderful they have helped their less frugal fellow EU members, the Germans have paid for their prosperity through hard work and clever use of resources, They started from the disaster of WWII and rebuilt Germany over decades of deprivation and careful use of the talents of her people. It doesn’t seem to register with all people that that’s pretty much how they have to approach their economies if they want to live like Germans! (I’m not too sympathetic to the countries that expect Germany to carry them, you can tell!)
Well, to be honest, I am sitting on the fence with this one. I know that Germans were forgiven a lot of their debt after the war. BUT – we were not standing there and demanding that, we worked hard and got the haircut as a reward for my grandparents’ generation’s hard work.
The idiots who set up the world for WWII throuygh punishing reparations placed on Germany after WWI learned a lesson, I think. The Assistance given Germany and other war-torn countries after WWII by the USA proved to be a very smart investment in peace and prosperity. It wasn’t a hand out. It was a an attempt to humanely restore the world to a happier place. Even then, most of the work had to be done by the local people, just using assistance (money, things) furnished by the Americans. The Marshall Plan was a very successful policy. The question one has about the Greeks and other EU countries depending on German help is what are they doing to make the best use of the German taxpayers’ money? At what point do they stand on heir own two feet?
Even Greek received money from the Marshal Plan. But they had a military dictatorship after WW II and all the money they got for their infrastructure seems to have vanished into the pockets of the corrupt politicians and their friends.
A sad and common story. I’m reminded of words carved in the stone over the main entrance of the Nebraska State Capitol: “The salvation of the state is watchfulness in the citizen.” When people don’t pay attention to those running their governments, don’t ask the right questions or question what the government does, you get situations like that. (The Iraq War is a prime example, I think, of where we fell down as a people in my country….)
Oh wow and kind of spooky looking. Sure hope you get some spring soon before you start getting snow in summer.
I’m looking forward to no snow this summer! LOL!
Very nice shot!
They were on the City of Alliance Facebook site. I don’t know who took them.
I love that shot of the swimming pool, ready to go, and all the surrounding snow! A great day for a Polar Bear swim!
Indeed! You can tell it from the photo, but it was taken from a diving platform. The photographer could have broken through the ice easily from that height!
That is just so amazing! The pool looks almost surreal! 🙂
That it does!