{"id":27329,"date":"2025-12-13T15:11:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T20:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=27329"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:44:33","slug":"some-people-you-know-are-trustworthysimon-is-one-of-that-kind-hawaii-trip-parkdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=27329","title":{"rendered":"SOME PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE TRUSTWORTHY\u2026SIMON IS ONE OF THAT KIND. Hawaii trip Parkdale"},"content":{"rendered":"
SOME PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE TRUSTWORTHY\u2026SIMON IS ONE OF THAT KIND.
\nalan skeoch dec. 9, 2025
\nSimon Cotter was president of our student council\u2026a good leader. Good to be with. Fun. Lots of ideas. Independent\u2026free wheeling.
\nSo when he asked speak to me privately I sensed it was trouble.
\n\u201cSir, I\u2019m in a bit of a jam.\u201d \u201cUnusual for you, Simon.\u201d \u201cHave you ever been to Hawaii? We need you desperately.\u201d
\nSimon thought he could organize a school trip on his own. Thirty students had been working all summer. Saving their money for a March break trip to Hawaii, The travel company assumed the trip was OK\u2026i.e. had teacher chaperones. Simon was Simon\u2026a free thinker. When the travel company discovered otherwise it was about to pull the rug out and take student deposits. He needed a chaperone.
\n\u201cOK Simon I will be your chaperone as long as 5 others come\u2026all paying their own way, Marjorie and our boys Kevin, 8 years old, Andrew, 4 years old\u2026and Mr and Mrs. Champion, British exchange teachers.\u2019’ “Great sir, we needed a few more anyway,,,pack your bathing suit.\u201d
\nOnce the trip became known, several staff members got alarmed\u2026
\n\u201cAlan, you are asking for trouble. Simon may have Parkdale street kids coming\u2026.no telling what they might do.\u201d etc. etc.
\n(Parkdale street kids indeed were on the trip. They knew how to avoid trouble\u2026best kind of kid to have on a trip. I did not like the term \u2019street kid’\u2026revealed an upper crust attitude. Our principal was supportive. She trusted me. I trusted SIMON. His mom\u2019s a trustee and his dad the a local anglican minister.)
\n\u201cAlan, the purpose of this trip is not education. The purpose is not, music history, art. The purpose is fun and fun can be very dangerous.\u201d
\n\u201c I trust Simon. He knows the risks.”
\nOur boys, got out of bed early each morning to visit al the girls\u2026loved them.
\nEVENTS
\n1) kids did not have a lot of money so were quite content to lounge on Waikiki beach with our children. Exotic experience. Middle of vast Pacfic Ocean. Lounging on ancient volcano with live volcano not far away.
\n2) Trip to battleship Arizona where so many sailors were entombed.
\n3) \u201cWhat is that helicopter doing?. I asked a guy bobbing up and down on gigantic waves. All Parkdale swimmers were riding the waves with me\u2026all save one!
\n\u2019The Helicopter is spotting sharks and catching swimmers that get caught in the UNDERTOW!\u201d Yikes! Get back to the beach.\u201dI yelled,” and everyone save one did so. Erwin Beltran came along head first planting himself among the millions of coral shards. Marjorie and the boys unplugged Erwin. Lost his contact lenses.
\n\u201cDo a count\u2026should be 17\u201d \u201cCount 16, sir\u2026” \u201cSimon is missing,\u201d
\nSinking feeling\u2026key member lost to shark maybe or, worse still pulled far offshore by current.
\n\u201cHere he comes\u2026bloody back.\u201d \u201cSorry sir\u2026got caught in a coral grotto down the beach\u2026..wave pushed me in \u2026.hard to get out\u2026 scraped my back on coral but I am fine\u2026sorry to cause alarm.
\nThere were undertow warnings but we never saw them\u2026so exciting to swim in an ocean wave generated by the vast Pacific ocean.
\nTHAT\u2019S IT\u2026ONLY ONE ADVENTURE\u2026.ONLY ONE I HEARD ABOUT ANYWAY.
\nalan skeoch dec. 13, 2-25
\nQUESTION; Suppose Simon asked you to go as a chaperone\u2026would you take the risks involved?
\nIf you want to scare yourself then talk to an insurance company,<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOME PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE TRUSTWORTHY\u2026SIMON IS ONE OF THAT KIND. alan skeoch dec. 9, 2025 Simon Cotter was president of our student council\u2026a good leader. Good to be with. Fun. Lots of ideas. Independent\u2026free wheeling. So when he asked speak to me privately I sensed it was trouble. \u201cSir, I\u2019m in a bit of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}