Niagara Falls

It’s going to happen. I guarantee it.

I took my penpal and her family to Niagara Falls yesterday. At the side of the Horseshoe Falls is a terrace with a wall and a guardrail around it. The idea is that it is to protect people from falling into the water to a certain death.

What bothered me was that people are sitting on the guardrail or the wall. Often they are doing so with somebody a few metres away trying to get the perfect photo. They move and contort their bodies much like a gymnast. If they have a sudden lapse of concentration, they could tumble and that would be it.

Equally as disturbing was the lack of attention that some parents paid to their children. Many of them could easily slip between the guardrail and the wall.

I was talking to a couple of teens working at the hotdog stand nearby. They mentioned to me that my fears were not imaginary. Somebody slipped and fell into the brink last year.

As much as it would be tragic to the person who died, can you imagine the trauma it would create for the people who witnessed the event?

It reminds me of the great Karl Walenda who performed one too many high wire walks in his life, falling to his death in Puerto Rico in 1978. It only took one adverse set of circumstances to make what was something that was routine to turn into a tragedy.

I think of times when I have been careless driving my car, but I don’t think I would do something as crazy as sitting on a guardrail next to Niagara Falls. Somebody will fall and they will probably put up something that will lessen the experience of being right next to the powerful current. One’s person stupidity will ruin it for many others.

Why do people do such things? I ask this question of myself as much as anyone else. There are times when I make some decisions that make me shake my head after at how dumb it was. Sometimes we even do things knowing that they are dumb.

It reminds me when I was young. We used to have an old radio with an electromagnet on the speaker. When I touched it, I got a shock. However, I kept on touching it, wondering why I kept on getting a buzz.

In the meantime, I will be watching the news for what I feel is going to be inevitable, knowing that one person’s foolishness will affect many people.