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Out & About in RI: Everyone in the swim at Cranston’s Budlong Pool Opening (videos, photos)
It was a beautiful day to swim – and swim they did – the younger ones seem to enjoy the water feature inside the pool as well as the separate splash pad – one man was swimming laps, and the teens were in the middle and family members sitting around in color-matching teal Adirondack chairs.
No need to unfurl the umbrellas as Canadian fires’ smoke kept the sky overcast, though the humidity helped encourage “everyone in the pool” right on cue.
Governor McKee began with kind words of the process and then introduced Mayor Ken Hopkins, who without such vision we would have all been looking at a patched up huge rectangle pool with leaking pipes, no ADA accessibility, no overhang from the sun, and no in-water features. Yes, it would have been HUGE, but this pool is BIG, too – as the folks from Niagara Pool Filling said, it’s the biggest pool we’ve ever filled. And fill it they did – right up to the top.
First In!
As early morning photos began to show up on social media it was a family of little ducks that seemed to look down from the skies with exclamation marks to each other and zoomed down to be the very first in the pool!
Opening up the event:
All in!
And a beautiful Drone video and aerial shots from our colleague, Jacob Dannenfelser:
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- Alex Sundberg, Cranston West Grad, on to Univ. of Mississippi – says his dad worked as a lifeguard here, too!
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- Gov. McKee and Mayor Hopkins
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- Rep. Paplauskas
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- Screenshot
And a few videos with giggles all around:
Publisher’s Note: Over the years, RINewsToday has done nearly 50 stories on the struggles of the city to repair/rebuild/reopen the Budlong Pool – we stood next to a woman from Cranston who grew up swimming in the pool who today has no children and wasn’t going in the water – as we talked she had tears streaming down her face, saying, “this is emotional – why am I crying! – this is so beautiful to see”. Yes, it was emotional. There wasn’t a thing not thought of, a detail overlooked. There are plans for more “cookout areas” to come. Naysayers were absent – the loudest voices didn’t even attend.
The woman we talked with will be back to go swimming she said, and she looks forward to it. As do thousands who will begin a new tradition that will serve Cranstonians and others for generations. One Cranston. Well done.