Worst Of Big D #27: Breaking Up Swimming on the Fake Fourth

We do a lot of best lists around here. I’ve suggested we start up a “worst of” list, but that idea hasn’t really caught on. The idea isn’t get down and gripe about our city, it’s to be honest about pointing out what doesn’t work, or what habits and attitudes cripple Dallas’ ability to pull off being, well, even better. Case in point: over on the Dallas Observer blog, Robert Wilonsky reports about how the fountains at Fair Park turned into an impromptu wading pool during the Fourth Fifth of July celebrations yesterday. And how did that impromptu revolt against the city with no public swimming options end? Police and park officials broke it up. Probably because there are insurance issues, or programming issues, or fear issues, or challenged authority issues, or “we didn’t plan for this so we can’t have it” issues. But whatever the issues, the people should have been allowed to swim because that would have been the interesting, big city thing to do. And if we could count on the fountains being full at Fair Park, and if traipsing through them was as accepted as splashing around in Millennium Park, well, I could see “swimming in Fair Park’s fountains” as a shoe-in for a D Best.