Friday, August 24, 2012

Beach Bicycle Bingo in Galveston




Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


Beach Bicycle Bingo

Lifeguards in Galveston are now armed with guns.  Perhaps those little whistles didn’t carry enough authority: “Hey, you with the Mickey ‘n’ Minnie’s Great Beach Adventure floatie!  Stop at the safety limit or I’ll shoot!”

No, really, David Hasselhoff of Baywatch won’t be pulling a made-in-Austria Glock from his mankini.

The Galveston Daily News (http://galvestondailynews.com/story/331978/) reports that a new type of police officer, called the Galveston Island Beach Patrol, now pedal along the sea wall in order to keep the peace, suppress littering, and enforce the beach-ban on alcohol.  They are certified lifeguards, certified police officers, and certified fashionistas.

A photograph features two bicycling officers wearing fetching lemon-colored tops, black knee-pants, sneaks, bug-eyed sunglasses, and plastic turtles on top of their heads.

The handlebars of one of the law enforcement bicycles appear to be decorated with tennis balls, lemon-colored tennis balls.

The cyclists don’t look like police officers; they look like two errant members of a boy-band on spring break.  Perhaps when making an arrest they address the miscreant with “You have the right to be marvelously in awe of my simply fabulous outfit.”

There’s nothing that speaks of the majesty of the law like mixing tactical gear and really cute tops.

The newspaper reports that the officers “have made contact with more than 8,000 tourists” (whatever that means) so far this year, and have “taken 7,219 regular and environmental enforcement actions,” reflecting the reality that even local governments never employ one or two simple words to make meanings clear, choosing instead to cobble together a forest of polysyllables that need translation.  Anyone who would write “environmental enforcement actions” should be relieved of his official City of Galveston thesaurus.

The officers appear to be carrying too much already, so tossing a thesaurus would be a start.  In addition to their pistols, badges, and radios the officers must also lug around sacks containing (this is a direct quote from the newspaper) “medical and lifesaving gear and…a tourism tool kit with brochures about Galveston, water safety and stickers and stamps for children.”

Clearly someone missed the lesson on faulty parallelism.

What air-conditioned genius thought it a good idea that police officers patrolling on bicycles or on foot in the gasping heat of a Texas summer should have to pack tourist brochures, water-safety brochures, and goodies for children next to the field dressings and the extra ammunition clips?

“Anything you say or do can and will be held against your admission to the maritime museum, which is where you stole that car, and here are some profusely illustrated folders about historic Galveston for when you sober up, some discount coupons for the Beach Burger-Barf Shack, and, hey, some stickers for the kids.”

What will officers on patrol be expected to do next?  Career counseling? 

The reality is that police officers on beach duty must observe, make quick life-or-death decisions, and deal with violence, drunks, heart-attacks, struggling swimmers, drownings, missing children, and other demands made upon them by crowds of vacationers who often aren’t as safety-conscious as they might be.  Should officers also have to add a sort of fold-up visitors’ center to their burdens?

Whatever the Galveston beach patrol officers are being paid, it isn’t enough.

-30-

No comments: