Senior Safety

HSC / pk: Fact #4: Senior Safety

Through early 2010 HSC met at the Sebring Hills Clubhouse (though in 2010 the organization moved to the Lion's Club). It's laid out in a line, like a railway train: to get from car two to car four you have to pass through car three. At one end are the storage closets: closed to the public. What the public sees is the Entrance end (with the buffet, the kitchen), then the Dining table middle, then the Dance floor (with a side reserved for the band). From 9 to 10 I would lead the line dancing: on the dance floor (using a CD player). At 10 the morning band started, and ball room dancing would take place on the one dance floor. At noon we'd have patriotic and religious ceremonies, then from 1 till closing the afternoon band would play for more ballroom dancing (a few line dances regularly thrown in).

Fine. It ought to have worked, even without an architect or a traffic cop. Except: throughout the day the kitchen staff would need something extra from the storage room. They'd have to pass through the dancers.

That too ought to have been fine, except: Bob is a big guy. The line dancers were typically female, in the 80s and 90s! frail, none too well coordinated. Bob, 220 or so pounds, six foot plus something, would put his head down, and barge through. The other kitchen staff were also generally young, large, and self-occupied. They all put their heads down, and barged through.

Now, here's a wrinkle not everyone will think of: ballroom dancing couples can be like mosquitoes at the lake: you can move through them without knocking them flat, the couples improvise along the line of dance, orbiting the dance floor like the Zodiac moving around the night. Not so line dancing. Line dancing is choreographed. You move north for four counts, then south for four counts. Suddenly the whole line turns West, or East!

A dozen of twenty 80 year old ladies turning East on cue does not mix safely with GI-Joe with his eyes shut. I mentioned this safety issue to Ahn. She said she'd take care of it.

And for a couple of weeks I'd notice Bob, impatiently waiting for a clear line of penetration, glowering at me as he did so. But then the band would go out of its way to be in our way. They'd tune up while we were straining to hear our weak CD player.

The HSC was never on the same page with itself.
The HSC was never on the same page with its volunteers.

Ahn tries to be the universal traffic cop. But if her back in turned, if she's being carted off by the ambulance (I've seen her carried out of the HSC several times in less than a year), then there is no traffic cop.

When I was in the army any private to tell any general to drop dead if the general was trying to steal the post gas. But in a south American dictatorship, there's only one cop. And the HSC cop is asleep at the wheel, and never delegates.

Oh, she delegates tasks, but no authority.

Now some HSC martinets take the authority themselves: pushing people around on the lunch line; but HSC's gentleman pk wants to be told, specifically, You can ban the kitchen staff from the dance floor during the dance, and fine them, expel them, call the cops on them, if they trespass.

I told Ahn: it's dangerous. I warned members: If there's an accident, I'll testify for the victim against the HSC.

But Ahn and Bob see and hear only what they want.

I used to think Ahn's heart was in the right place (while Bob's heart was where the sun don't shine). Now I don't.