The Best Advice Ever

Just as we reach the door to the gym, the fire alarm blares. I don’t catch on for a minute but Ed knows instantaneously what is going on. “Oh NO!” he laments.  “It’s a fire drill,” a young mother with three kids hanging on her smiles, as we pass through the doors. “For the school?” I question. The Clearfield Aquatic Center is connected to and part of North Davis Junior High.  Lights flashing; unearthly sirens resounding in a multitude of blasts relentlessly. Evidently, it takes more than usual to get the attention of junior high school students. Inside the lobby, everyone is calm. Business as usual. Firemen standing in small groups conversing as if they have no place to go. There are usually fire trucks and emergency vehicles parked at the gym; that’s what they do while waiting to be heroes. When Ed got in big trouble at the Ogden gym, the EMT's were already there. They thought they were going to lose him before they got to the hospital but that's another story. 
   As we pass by this one fireman standing alone, I query through the blare, “Why aren’t we running?” He ponders a moment and I think he isn’t going to reply, when he looks around and says, “I’m waiting to see smoke so I’ll know which way to run.”

So true. What if we had run in the wrong direction straight into the fire?

One time at the Heathrow Airport near London, the fire alarm resounded the two hours we were waiting in line. No one wanted to lose their place in line to vacate and eventually, just before we got to the desk, it stopped.

It unnerves Ed almost to the point of fainting like Diane always did when she heard a siren.

The blaring of noise and lights continues all the time we are dressing for the pool. Playing along, I jump in thinking the fire can’t get me there. Ed comes without his fins. “Where are your fins?” It’s about the last straw for him.

 Finally silence. “Thank heavens, it’s enough to make one forget his fins,” I console Ed.

Moral: Wait to see smoke so you’ll know which direction to run.  

The next day, I asked a woman in the dressing room

if she were there yesterday for the blaring fire alarm.

"No, but once we were swimming when the fire alarm

went off and they made everyone get out of the pool

and go out to the patio
beyond the fence in the dead of winter.

My friend and I slipped into the changing room

and grabbed our bags. They were yelling at us to

get out but at least we had our car keys

and our clothes. We could have been out on that

patio for two hours."

Rocky, the senior 17-time gold metal winner
at the Utah Games,

was back today for the first time in a month.

He was one who had to get out of the pool,

go out soaking wet in bare feet and stand in the snow.

For how long?

"At least 1/2 hour. We about froze to death.

They finally brought us towels.

It was awful."

"Then about two years ago, a kid came to school with a gun.

He was going to shoot his teacher.

They made us all get out of the pool

and go into the classroom.

I had my swim team and I looked at all those windows

and thought, 'We are not safe here',

we need to be in the Janitor's closet with a metal door'."

Never a dull moment

when you're connected to a junior high school.