The Legend

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I am pretty humble and nonchalant when it comes to my life. But, in the course of my work, I meet a lot of people. Relationship-building is important, and I cherish each of the connections I have made. With that in mind, last night I held our annual end-of-the-summer cookout for all of my lifeguards. For those that aren't aware, I work in a local parks and recreation department for the municipality I live in; part of my duties includes managing all the city's public swimming pools. Anyway, because our pools don't close until 9:00pm, we held our annual get-together from 9-11pm at one of our pools. My management team and I put together a large barbecue feast for our staff to show our appreciation for all the hard work they did this summer in protecting the lives of all the patrons who visited our pools (we will surpass our all-time attendance record of over 136,000 visitors this year). We planned some fun games, activities and a festive atmosphere with music and fun in the pool. Our guards are usually so busy sitting in the lifeguard stands every day that they don't get many opportunities to get in the pool and have some fun themselves. This was that chance to do so. So, imagine my surprise at about 10:30pm, when we had about 80 staff members in the pool, music playing, the barbecue grill fired up, and in come storming six police officers! They yelled "Everybody on the pool deck freeze, and everybody in the pool get out now!" I was manning the grill when this went down, and I went to step toward the lead officer, when he yelled at me in a commanding voice, "I said freeze!" Then, all of sudden, his body relaxed, his voice softened, and he said, "Moffitt, is that you?" I responded, "Yes, sir, the one and only!" He then turned to his other officers, and told them they could stand down, the situation was under control, and they could return to their squad cars. The commanding officer was a Sergeant that I was friends with at work. He shook my hand and asked me what was going on at the pool at nearly 11:00 at night. I told him what was going on, and why we were there. I then told him to call all his officers back in so that they could join the barbecue and grab a burger before going back to their shifts. They all ended up staying and hanging out on the pool deck with us until the event concluded about 30 minutes later. One of my lifeguards made a comment to me when she passed by on the way out the door at the end of the night. "You are a legend around here, you know everybody! That is epic! Everybody will be talking about this at work tomorrow!" Haha, I guess I am a legend around these parts! I hope it doesn't go to my head!