"Creepers"

Yesterday I took my kids to their swim practice.  It was like most days.  When we got there early, like usual, there was a group of high schoolers practicing at the pool.  I looked over and noticed a man, who looked rough, looking in at the swimmers and mumbling things.  My daughter told me that it was pretty common to see "creepers" at the pool, watching.

I wasn't interested in this man being there watching these kids. And I definitely wasn't interested in him watching MY kids.  I knew that this man was probably troubled.  But I also knew I had to go and say something to him.

I walked over to the coaches who were at the pool and asked them about the man.  They told me that they had called dispatch, the police, but it had been 15 minutes.  I told them I was going to go over and talk to the man and tell him that he needed to move along.  They seemed relieved that someone was going to do something.

As I started to walk away the young male coach asked if I wanted him to go with me, I said, "Sure."  So he followed along behind. He quickly realized that I was going to go talk to the man outside of the chain link fence and asked if it would be better to stay inside the fence.  I thought that was reasonable and so we approached the man with the chain link between us.  Here was our conversation:

Me:  "Hello Sir, do you have any students in the pool practicing?"

Man:  "No.  I was just watching the spectacle."

Me:  "Well, if you don't have any kids in the pool it's probably best that you move along.  If you want to come watch and cheer at a meet that would be great!"  (Not that I really meant it would be great, just that it would be a better place to realistically go watch swimmers you don't know.)  ;)

Man:  "Oh...Okay.  I was just watching.  You guys have a great bunch of swimmers out there!"

Me:  "Thank you very much!  We sure do!"

The man then preceded to pick up his stuff and walk away.  The coaches thanked me.

The police showed up about 10 minutes later and I went over to talk to the officer to let him know what happened.

My kids were watching me the whole time.  I wonder what was going through their heads.

We as men need to step up a little bit more.  We need to show our families and those around us that we aren't going to stand by and watch things just happen.  I know I have a long way to go, but yesterday God helped me show courage with love.

I don't think the man walked away feeling horrible.  I believe he was actually quite happy to carry on a conversation with someone. At least yesterday that's all that was needed to defuse a uncomfortable situation.