{"id":43310,"date":"2024-03-10T08:22:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T12:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=43310"},"modified":"2024-03-06T13:25:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T18:25:40","slug":"a-fish-with-a-sore-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/a-fish-with-a-sore-thumb\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fish with a Sore Thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cServing overseas as a small-town boy in America has been intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Matt<\/em><\/strong> , Matt’s Mishaps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you traumatized by swim lessons as a kid?  My parents for many summers sent me to the local public pool to try to learn to swim.  Each summer I\u2019d progress a little, but all the others in my class would advance up to the next level as I lingered behind.  Eventually I was in late elementary school and the others in my swim class were now a head or two shorter than me.  I was finally allowed to stop classes.  I wasn\u2019t \u201ctraumatized\u201d by swimming nor the pool, but being the one who stuck out like a sore thumb.  I love swimming and pools to this day.  However, my wife and sons still think I don\u2019t know how to swim, though I feel like I am Olympic caliber at the doggy paddle and treading water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Changing ocean currents and temperatures can bring an invasion of jelly fish. The pumps of seas pools can suck jelly fish and small fish into the swimming area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Overseas I have trouble going unnoticed at a pool too.\u00a0 One hot day I was with my family at a \u201csea pool\u201d along the coast.\u00a0 The sea pool had a pump that would draw salty sea water into the pool and then pump it out every once in a while to clean it.\u00a0 We saw a dozen locals standing around the pool, but not getting in.\u00a0 My three sons and I put a foot in the water and it didn\u2019t seem that cold.\u00a0 We thought, \u201cWe\u2019ll have to show those wimpy locals how it is done.\u201d\u00a0 We all climbed down the ladder and enjoyed the refreshing water as all the locals watched on.\u00a0 After several minutes, one of my sons got my attention \u2013 a jelly fish was floating in the water.\u00a0 We all moved over to another side of the pool and were enjoying ourselves, when we spotted a few more jelly fish.\u00a0 Then our eyes adjusted to how the jelly fish floated about and we saw dozens more in the pool.\u00a0 We all made our way quickly to the ladder and out of the pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to go unnoticed at a pool when you are a fish out of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something similar ever happen to you?   Contact me and let me hear your story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt\u2019s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN  46741<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cServing overseas as a small-town boy in America has been intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,25,13165],"tags":[21494,13025],"class_list":["post-43310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-churches","category-columns","category-matts-mishaps","tag-a-fish-with-a-sore-thumb","tag-matts-mishaps"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/sore-thumb-matts-mishaps.jpeg?fit=666%2C375&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-bgy","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-27 05:15:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43312,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43310\/revisions\/43312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}