Swimming Permission Slip: Fill & Download for Free

While on break from middle school, I began an informal graphology study. In the summer of 1981, I discovered a great book by an FBI consultant in the local library near the community swimming pool. Sunburned, I would read while listening to Rush and Cheap Trick records through headphones on the public turntables. I began to analyze and then practice my parents' signatures. And then I had a small epiphany: If all someone ever saw was my rendition of my parents' signatures, then mine would appear the legitimate and theirs the copies.Fast forward to 1984: New school, new town, freshman year. During the enrollment process, Dad stepped out for a few minutes. I took the opportunity to complete the forms, signed them with my rendition of his signature, and returned them to the administrative office.For the next four years, all late and absence excuses that came into the school office and checked against Dad's signature were determined legitimate, because I never asked him to sign anything, neither permission slips nor report cards. Life in high school sometimes just worked better when levels of bureaucracy were effectively managed.Edit: Regarding the use of sunburned vs sunburnt: In standard American usage, sunburned is past tense, while sunburnt is present tense (I was sunburned, I am sunburnt). 1981 was a few years ago, thus the use of past tense.

What is the worst anti-vax argument you’ve every heard?Well, I’ve never heard a good anti-vax argument, but I sure know which one I found to be the worst. That was my Dad’s.I was a kid a long time ago, right when vaccines were starting to be available. Everyone I knew was getting vaccinated, but my parents refused to have my brother and me vaccinated for anything. Polio, smallpox, measles, rubella, whooping cough…they refused.My brother and I lived with my grandparents every summer and my youngest aunt and uncles were getting their vaccinations. My Granny never said much on the subject, but when she took my youngest aunt and uncle to get a round of vaccinations, she took my brother and me along and got us the polio vaccine and a smallpox inoculation. And, she told us not to tell my parents.That made a huge impression on me because telling us to keep something secret just wasn’t the kind of thing she ever did. During that school year, they arranged to have vaccinations given at school and my folks refused to sign the permission slip. So, after being the only kid in my class who didn’t line up for the shots, I asked my mother why we weren’t getting them. She said it was my father’s issue.Well, asking my Dad anything was a tougher proposition, but eventually, a couple of years later, I did ask him. He wasn’t at all upset about the question, amazingly enough, but his answer just left me stunned.My Dad informed me that vaccines were destroying the gene pool as people were surviving that would have died otherwise. In fact, he also opposed giving insulin to diabetics. He was quite clear about it. People who didn’t survive things like measles shouldn’t survive because they weren’t “fit” enough.Let me be absolutely clear about what he said. If my brother and I couldn’t survive whooping cough or measles or polio, or smallpox that was fine. We weren’t “fit” to live. I was roughly eight years old at the time.So, I’ve heard some doozies from the anti-vaxxing crowd, but that sink or swim, eugenic attitude was the single most appalling one ever.

As a long time pool owner, sometimes in areas where getting to a public pool was at best difficult, I have had a lot of experience with kids asking and some just helping themselves to the use of my pools.At first there was some pride in being able to share, but there was an accident where a child messing around on our large curved slide went off the side into the deck instead of the pool. They got pretty skinned up but fortunately no bones broken or worse. The parents were livid at me for not providing ample supervision and threatened to sue. Not long after another child was hurt when messing around on my diving board. He slammed his side into the side of the pool and broke some ribs. Frankly, he got lucky as things could have been much worse. I did get a nasty letter from that child’s parent’s attorney that my insurance company had to take care of. They never told me if they paid the family off or what.We had a bully who refused to behave and I cut him off. After for him what was a long wait I let him come back with promises he would behave. Within minutes he was dunking smaller children and laughing as they were fighting for their lives to just breathe. I had to manhandle him out of the pool and escort him to his parents. I told his parents he was not welcome back ever to either the home or pool. They got nasty saying that meant he could not play with his friends who all regularly played and swam at our home. I said they needed to do a better job raising their child as he was a mean nasty bully who would never be welcome in our home again, let alone our pool. They actually had an attorney call me and threaten to sue. I laughed at that attorney for trying to intimidate me and said he also was not welcome to come to my home or swim with us either.We tried many other things such as permission slips from parents with hold harmless clauses, etc. and none proved workable.Regardless, the school of hard knocks better known as life slowly built up a set of rules that got put in place to protect me and those who used my pool.Nobody ever was allowed to use our pool without permission and anyone caught was referred to the local police for trespass. I had one neighbor whose teens were slipping into my pool and skinny dipping late at night. They successfully jumped the back fence the first few times the police were called, but then were very surprised to find the police waiting for them on the other side of the fence. They did some nasty stuff in retribution after such as throwing dog poop into the pool. A stiff talking to by the police finally got them under control. They were still nasty and we were happy to see that family move not long after.All children who used our pool had to be certified as being able to swim or wear the life vests we provided when near or in the pool. Most children in our last two neighborhoods did not know how to swim, so I paid for an instructor to come in and give group lessons to get all of my neighbor children to the point they were swimming well enough to be relatively safe in our pool. The cost was little more than just getting my own children swimming and was worth its weight in gold. A few of those children went on to do well in competitive swimming and a few earned their WSI cards and worked as lifeguards. One came back years later and said after being a lifeguard they had far more respect for our “rules”.All were required to read and agree to abide by our posted pool rules. If any failed to abide they were kicked out and may or may not be allowed to return, solely at my discretion. I put up a plastic poster that had an excellent set of rules covering running on the decks, peeing in the pool, only getting into the pool if you were clean, no using the pool if you had sores, wounds, casts, etc., no rough housing permitted, dunking resulted in automatic expulsion as was pushing anyone into the pool, what toys were acceptable in the pool, never have glass or ceramics in or around the pool, food and drink in the pool were not allowed, always wear sun screen, never swim alone, always stay hydrated, etc..No children were allowed to use our pool without either their parent there to oversee them or me or my other half. We found adult children and others unreliable to babysit others, so finally just said no.