Re: Dunk Tank Drama - Part 3
Posted by kmf on July 19, 2023 at 13:03:38
In Reply to: Dunk Tank Drama - Part 3 posted by Pete on July 02, 2023 at 03:42:28:
I liked this set of stories, and it was good to hear that there didn't seem to be much drama at the end of all of it. I hope there was nothing else that developed afterwards that you didn't share.
It reminds me of when I was growing up, and the silly things adults sometimes worried about. In my hometown there were two middle schools and there was sometimes a friendly rivalry between the two. One tradition was the middle school baseball teams played each other in a "championship" game during the summer during the city's festival weekend. And the tradition was that the team that lost would sit in the dunk tank and get dunked by the winning team. The game always seemed to take place on the hottest day of the year and I never remember hearing anyone complain about having to go in the dunk tank. And from what I remember usually both teams ended up getting dunked, because it was just fun to cool off in the dunk tank. I played baseball in 7th and 8th grade, and I ended up having to get dunked both times. I thought it was a ton of fun, and I don't remember anyone ever complaining about it.
Well then some of the adults got to thinking that it was "bad sportsmanship" to treat the losing team like that - and they made this whole stink about wanting to end the dunk tank tradition - never mind that it was something that the kids (ie, the people ACTUALLY getting dunked) looked forward to all year. In the end I think they ended up keeping the tradition, but it just goes to show you that sometimes people make a big deal over nothing, and sometimes we should just let people have fun and not solve problems that aren't actually problems.