I took the photo on the right when I went to see two grand daughters in a regional swim meet.
I loved the swim meet for two reasons. It had 1,200 swimmers racing 20 at a time from ages 10 to 18 for four days, including some relays. The entire meet ran like a highly efficient machine, entirely the product of humans (mostly strangers) working intimately together in split-second precision.
Second, competitive swimming is and always has been a middle-class sport (unlike tennis, sailing, golf and horseback). The people at the meet were healthy, enthusiastic, sweet, ethnically diversified and proud. Just what I love about the American middle-class.