FROM THE EDITOR

In Ashtabula County, Ohio in the 70s, every right-thinking kid secured a crucial piece of aquatic equipment by Memorial Day — namely, a pair of lake shoes. Mine were always the blown-out Converse All Stars my mother had bought me to start school the previous September. Swim trunks could be a fashion statement. But lake shoes were totally a utilitarian proposition.

Where I grew up, Lake Erie beaches are rocky. The lake takes as much earth as it can grab and leaves only boulders. But as swimmers, that wasn't our problem. The solution was our problem.

To combat erosion, the Army Corps of Engineers built "fingers," which were 50-yard, tapered concrete walls just below the surface of the water. The fingers ran out into the lake perpendicular to the shoreline and were placed at 500-yard intervals. How that was supposed to stop erosion I don't know. What I do know is that somebody at the corps misjudged the power of the lake. The waves soon stripped the concrete portions of the fingers, leaving the rusty metal cages around which the concrete had been poured. In time, the water twisted and misaligned the cages, too.

Of course, there's no misjudging a kid's need to get wet in the summer time: a need so strong that a guy will risk swimming all weighed down by a pair of smelly tennis shoes in order to save his feet from getting mangled by the fingers. I don't fault the Army Corps of Engineers. They tried — what was then — cutting edge technology in an effort to save resources and make our township park a better place to play.

This issue will introduce you to some of today's aquatics-related technology. For our Web Xtra, Darci Yeo explores how computer software packages are making pool operations safer and more efficient. And Buffalo Grove's Lori Magee, along with Alejandra Pares, discusses how that park district got over its case of "aquatic envy" by installing a cost-efficient spray playground (see page 31). Their big lesson: In the summer kids really just want to get wet.

The Rockford Park District has learned that lesson, too. My sentimental favorite story this issue is an item in People and Places (page 38) about the rehabilitation of Harkins Aquatic Center, a facility that teaches at-risk children how to swim for free.

I hope you'll consider this issue my personal thank you to the park and recreation professionals who operate the great facilities that keep Illinois families cool in the hot, hot summer time. Thanks to you, lake shoes are a thing of the past.

RODD WHELPLEY

Editor

4 - Illinois Parks and Recreation