Nerfed.

As one grows older, stories or yesteryear seem to just come streaming from your lips before you can dam them up and contain them under the heading "No One Cares But You Grandpa." However sometimes one has to relieve the tension and allow some current lest the levy break.

There used to be one and only one measure of success when it came to building, owning, and operating a swimming pool. The diving board. Is there a diving board? How is the spring on the board? How high is it off the water? After all, the fun of swimming is not actually being in the water, but getting in and out of the water in the most creative ways that we can find. This mindset is the explanation for the line of shivering, wet boys holding there elbows while standing in a line outside of the pool. They and their chattering teeth are waiting their turn to show everyone else how spectacular their entrance into the cool blue can be. And so, they go in and out and back again because they push their art form to be bigger, higher, and better executed.

Disappeared. Where are the heroes of the high dive? Maybe it was one too many faulty flips ending in painful belly flops. Perhaps the duties of life guarding is too stressful, the whistles being abused by power hungry teens headed for careers in the post office. Who knows why, but we all saw it coming. First the high dives were replaced with small slides. Then the low boards were abducted leaving only bolt holes in the concrete... a monument to the fun that once was. Are they gone completely? In our quest to turn the globe into a soft foam ball so Sally doesn't scrape her knee, are we wiping out fun faster than we can down the rainforest? The boards are extinct and the deep ends are endangered, but shhhhh... it will be okay because you can play Wii diving in the safety of your home. So label all the risks "X-treme", stay in the shallow end, and enjoy your padded room. Me and my skinned knee will be outside playing on the concrete at dangerous heights and break neck speeds.