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Letters: Column lacked common sense

Mr. Jacques, I believe you rushed your last column because it surely lacks foresight and common sense
Skateboarder
A South Delta resident has taken issue with a recent column published by Optimist editor Ian Jacques, saying that the column lacked foresight and common sense.

Editor:

Re: Let the kids play (editorial, Optimist, Jan. 7)

Mr. Jacques, I believe you rushed your last column because it surely lacks foresight and common sense.

Perhaps one of the children is yours and this is your way to appease your embarrassment and use the paper to publicly scowl a responsible adult.

Let’s look at the two main themes that guide your column.

First kids should be allowed to do as they wish, not as they should. Second, since we are all under the restrictions of COVID-19 and this is such a burden, we should all be able to “have some fun.”

The “shopping complex” you refer to has clearly posted signage forbidding skate boarding anywhere on its property. It does so for noise and safety. Anyone who has tried skateboarding or watched others always observes an uncontrollable skate board rocket across the pavement when the rider losers their balance. That missile hitting my shin could fracture my tibia and fibula and I end up in emergency for surgery or casting. At the hospital I am potentially exposed to powerful bacteria or even COVID-19 and I die. Mr. Jacques, if it was your child would you still think he/she should arbitrarily have some fun? And tell us did the group of teens apply for permission at the shopping complex to film and skate on the property? I guess not, so, a learning situation is muddled by your embarrassment and lack of foresight and any teen reading your column figures, hey do as I want not as I should. It said so in the paper!

The excuse that the teens wanted to skateboard, and film videos of skateboarding is irrelevant. We as a city, have expensive skateboarding sites for the proper use of this sport. And all a teen need is an umbrella to film in the rain as every TV outside reporter and video team member demonstrate every day on the news. Before COVID-19 restrictions teens and children are outdoors in the rain playing soccer or field hockey and none of them appear to be melting.

Every day we see politicians and government staff travelling outside Canada, because they are “trying to have some fun” despite specific or requested orders not to do so by Health authorities. Thousands of Canadians, according to the news, apparently all feel the same as they play in Hawaii, but millions more of Canadians obey the rules in order to mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak.

Finally, the youth of the City of Delta have a tremendous number of opportunities that are subsidized heavily by tax payers, opportunities that I and many from my age group never dreamed of experiencing. We learned to create play with a tin can and managed successfully to have fun. Now that COVID-19 arrives, you feel the youth are oppressed, that they are two stunned to be able to use their imagination to play safely without supervised and managed sports or events. I think they can learn to have fun without all the hoopla or we as adults have destroyed the imagination of a generation.

Mr. Jacques, do you get the picture?

R Peterson