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Grandmother comes out of 'retirement' to be lifeguard at local pool due to staffing shortages

She was a lifeguard at 16, and now she gets to give back to the community.

NBC News/YouTube

Robin Borlandoe is a 70-year-old grandma in Philadelphia working as a lifeguard this summer.

You're never too old to make a difference. That's what Robin Borlandoe, a 70-year-old grandmother, learned when she decided to become a local lifeguard this year. Seeing that there was a need she could fill, she got out her bathing suit and got back in the pool to help her community.

Borlandoe is a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, a city that, like others around the country, was suffering from a lifeguard shortage earlier this year. In May, the city was looking for about 150 lifeguards to staff 60 to 70 pools. According to news station Fox 29, 150 was the bare minimum amount—they were actually looking to hire 400 lifeguards. Borlandoe was one of 16 certified lifeguards over the age of 60 who stepped up to fill the need.

"We're in a bad spot and I just wanted to do something," Borlandoe told Fox 29 back in May. "It wasn't only to help the kids, it was to help me too. I just needed to do something, so I came out of my comfort zone…it's been a journey."

Borlandoe revealed that she had been a lifeguard "some years ago" at the age of 16. She admitted that things were a lot different then (if she's 70, she was a teenager in the late 1960s, so that makes sense).

"The training is much more detailed," she admitted. "They expect professionalism, and teach how to save somebody in different ways. Back then it was just 'give you a whistle, get in the water.'"

Borlandoe, who worked in healthcare before being laid off prior to the pandemic, admits that she "loves the water" and really enjoyed being a lifeguard as a teen. She told Fox 29 the story about how she rescued a 7-year-old girl who was struggling to stay afloat in the pool and how good it made her feel to help.

Helping this generation of kids is Borlandoe's current motivation for getting back on the lifeguard stand as well. Not just keeping them safe in the water, but keeping them safe outside of the pool too.

"They have no place to go," she told NBC Nightly News. "The pools are closed all around."

During her NBC News interview, she shared that she and her family witnessed a shooting right on her front lawn. "There were three young boys that were shot—killed," she said.

"When you see it, it's scary and very sad." NBC News reported that at least 100 children ages 17 and younger had been victims of gun violence in Philadelphia this year alone. Borlandoe wanted to do "something small, just to help out." If her being on duty means a pool can be open and the kids can have someplace to hang out, to her that's worth all the training and time.

"I'm very much commited to this," she said. "This is my reputation, my community."

She has demonstrated that commitment already. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that she has already encountered a young person in need of her grandma wisdom. The outlet shared that there was a young man whose "saucy language landed him a poolside time-out." Borlandoe is clearly rising to the occasion.

“I’m going to make him my project,” she told the reporter.

We need more grandmas like Robin Borlandoe in the world.

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Heroes

Obama just gave the brutally honest Trump speech millions of people have been waiting for

Joe Biden/YouTube

When Trump entered the Oval Office on his first day as president, he was greeted by a note from his predecessor. In his letter, Obama congratulated Trump on "a remarkable run," offered a few bits of sage advice, wished him well, and told him that he and Michelle "stand ready to help in any ways which we can." It was a distinguished letter from a statesman, and a beautiful example of the peaceful and supportive transfer of power that has marked every election in modern history.

Since then, Obama has largely stayed above the fray and out of the spotlight, allowing President Trump a chance to do the job without interference. Even when his friend and former vice president Joe Biden announced his run for president, Obama held back on a formal endorsement, letting the political process run its course. At the Democratic National Convention, we saw a shift, as the former president finally let the public hear his frank assessment of Trump's job performance from his experienced point-of-view.

But at a drive-in rally in Philadelphia yesterday, Obama rolled up his sleeves, took off the gloves, and gave real voice to the frustrations half of America has felt for the past four years. And phew—it was gloriously cathartic.

While those who admire Obama admire him for always going high, going high doesn't mean overlooking the obvious. There comes a time and place for laying out the bare truth, no matter how ugly it is. Obama stepped back and gave Trump the time and space to do the job, but now that his term is nearing its end, the time for truth-telling has come.

President Barack Obama Speech at Drive-In Rally in Pennsylvania | Joe Biden for Presidentwww.youtube.com


The whole speech is worth watching, especially after the standard pleas to get out the vote. I recommend starting at the 3:20 mark. Here are some highlights:

"I never thought Donald Trump would embrace my vision or continue my policies but I did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously, but it hasn't happened. He hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends or treating the presidency like a reality show that he can use to get attention. And by the way, even then his TV ratings are down. So you know that upsets him.

But the thing is, this is not a reality show, this is reality. And the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously. At least 220,000 Americans have died. More than 100,000 small businesses have closed. Millions of jobs are gone. Our proud reputation around the world is in tatters."

On Trump's secret Chinese bank account and taxes and how Fox News would have reacted if that were him:

"We know that he continues to do business with China because he's got a secret Chinese bank account. How is that possible? How is that possible? A secret Chinese bank account. Listen, can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection. You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would've called me Beijing Berry. It is not a great idea to have a president who owes a bunch of money to people overseas. That's not a good idea.

I mean, of the taxes Donald Trump pays, he may be sending more to foreign governments than he pays in the United States. His first year in the White House he only paid $750 in federal income tax. Listen, my first job was at a Baskin Robbins when I was 15 years old. I think I'm might have paid more taxes that year working at a dispensing ice cream. How is that possible?"

On responsibility, tweeting, and making things up:

"I get that this president wants full credit for the economy he inherited and zero blame for the pandemic that he ignored. But you know what? The job doesn't work that way. Tweeting at the television doesn't fix things. Making stuff up doesn't make people's lives better. You've got to have a plan. You've got to put in the work. And along with the experience to get things done, Joe Biden has concrete plans and policies that will turn our vision of a better, fairer, stronger country into a reality."

On the pandemic response:

"We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook that would have shown them how to respond before the virus reached our shores. They probably used it to, I don't know, prop up a wobbly table somewhere. We don't know where that playbook went. Eight months into this pandemic, cases are rising again across this country. Donald Trump isn't suddenly going to protect all of us. He can't even take the basic steps to protect himself...

This pandemic would have been challenging for any president but this idea that somehow this White House has done anything but completely screw this up. It's just not true. I'll give you a very specific example. Korea identified it's first case at the same time that the United States did. At the same time, their per capita death toll is just 1.3% of what ours is. In Canada, it's just 39% of what ours is. Other countries are still struggling with the pandemic but they're not doing as bad as we are because they've got a government that's actually been paying attention.

And that means lives lost. And that means an economy that doesn't work. And just yesterday, when asked if he'd do anything differently, Trump said, 'Not much.' Really? Not much? Nothing you can think of that could have helped some people keep their loved ones alive? So, Joe's not going to screw up testing. He's not going to call scientists idiots. He's not going to host a super spreader event at the White House."

On Trump's economic record and Biden's economic plan:

"Donald Trump likes to claim he built this economy but America created 1.5 million more jobs in the last three years of the Obama-Biden administration than in the first three years of the Trump-Pence administration. How you figure that? And that was before he could blame the pandemic. Now, he did inherit the longest streak of job growth in American history but just like everything else he inherited, he messed it up. The economic damage he inflicted by botching the pandemic response means he will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to actually lose jobs.

Joe's got a plan to create 10 million good clean energy jobs as part of a historic $2 trillion investment to fight climate change, to secure environmental justice. And he'll pay for it by rolling back that tax cut for billionaires. And Joe sees this moment not just as a chance to get back to where we were but to finally make long overdue changes so that our economy actually makes life a little easier for everybody, the waitress trying to raise her kid on her own, the student trying to figure out how to pay for next semester's classes, the shift worker who's always on the edge of getting laid off, the cancer survivor who's worried about her preexisting conditions, protections being taken away."

On conspiracy theories and crazy uncles and how character matters:

"With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you're not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day. And that's worth a lot. You're not going to have to argue about them every day. It just won't be so exhausting. You might be able to have a Thanksgiving dinner without having an argument. You'll be able to go about your lives knowing that the president is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world or that Navy Seals didn't actually kill bin Laden. Think about that. The president of the United States retweeted that. Imagine. What? What?! We're not going to have a president that goes out of his way to insult anybody who doesn't support him or threaten them with jail. That's not normal presidential behavior.

We wouldn't tolerate it from a high school principal. We wouldn't tolerate it from a coach. We wouldn't tolerate it from a co-worker. We wouldn't tolerate it in our own family, except for maybe crazy uncle somewhere. I mean, why would we expect and accept this from the President of the United States? And why are folks making excuses for that? 'Oh, well, that's just him.' No. No. There are consequences to these actions. They embolden other people to be cruel and divisive and racist, and it frays the fabric of our society, and it affects how our children see things. And it affects the ways that our families get along. It affects how the world looks at America. That behavior matters. Character matters."

On the unqualified people Trump has appointed to run government agencies:

"The Environmental Protection Agency that's supposed to protect our air and our water is right now run by an energy lobbyist that gives polluters free reign to dump unlimited poison into our air and water. The Labor Department that's supposed to protect workers and their rights, right now it's run by a corporate lobbyist who's declared war on workers, guts protections to keep essential folks safe during a pandemic, makes it easier for big corporations to shortchange them on their wages. The Interior Department, that's supposed to protect our public lands and wild spaces, our wildlife and our wilderness. And right now that's run by an oil lobbyist who's determined to sell them to the highest bidder.

You've got the Education Department that's supposed to give every kid a chance, and that's run by a billionaire who guts rules designed to protect students from getting ripped off by for profit colleges and stiffs arm students looking for loan relief in the middle of an economic collapse. I mean, the person who runs Medicaid right now is doing their best to kick people off of Medicaid instead of sign them up for Medicaid. Come on."

There's so much in here that speaks to how tens of millions of Americans have been feeling, and hearing it from no-drama Obama is refreshing. But Obama didn't just lay out the ugly truth about Trump. Much of his speech was spent explaining why Joe Biden would be—will be—the president American needs. He highlighted some of Biden's policy proposals and plans, but the heart of his endorsement is about who Joe Biden is:

"Joe's no stranger to here. He's a native son. Scrappy kid from Scranton. You know him and he knows you. But let me, let me tell you how I came to know him and how I came to love him. Twelve years ago, when I chose Joe Biden as my vice presidential running mate, I didn't know Joe all that well. We had served in the Senate together, but we weren't super close. He and I came from different places. We came from different generations.

But I came to admire Joe as a man who has learned early on to treat everybody he meets with dignity and respect, living by the words his parents taught him, no one's better than you Joe, but you're better than nobody. And that empathy, that decency, that belief that everybody counts, that's who Joe is. That's who he'll be.

And I can tell you the presidency doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are. And Joe has shown himself to be a friend of working people. For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room when I faced a big decision. He made me a better president and he's got the character and experience to make us a better country."

Obama earned the right to retire from the limelight after eight years leading the nation, and he may have hoped to retreat from the political fray after his two terms. But his voice is appreciated by many Americans, and his reason, intelligence, and compassionate leadership is needed now more than ever. Bringing that, along with some raw honesty, to the campaign trail is sure to be a boon for Joe Biden.

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Family

Should school nurses be able to send unvaccinated kids home? Many parents say 'yes.'

In Philadelphia, PA, nurses used to have the right to keep an unvaccinated child out of school — until now.

Lincoln High School nurse Peg Devine explained to the Philadelphia Inquirer that, in her experience, exclusion — preventing a child from attending school until they are up to date on required vaccinations — “proved powerful.” In her 26 years on the job she kept only 15 students out of school and none of them ended up missing more than two days before proving immunization.

However, now her right to intervene has been taken away by the school district, which she finds especially concerning due to the local outbreak of mumps (so far, over 100 Temple University students have contracted the disease) and the measles outbreak in New York — less than two hours from Philadelphia.

“It’s very dangerous that you’ve got kids who are not immunized, and you have medically fragile kids,” Devine said. “It’s unprecedented.”

About 10% of children in the Philadelphia school district remain unvaccinated.

The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed several nurses from within the school district who all believe it should be their discretionary right to exclude students who were not properly vaccinated.

Colleen Quinn, the nurse at the High School for Creative and Performing Arts, points out that two students at her school are receiving chemotherapy, and there are others whose immune systems are compromised, including young teachers who are pregnant. Of the 750 students at the school 42 are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. She has attempted to educate parents but often gets the “runaround.”

“If you were a parent, and you had a child in the school setting who was recovering from cancer, or recently had an organ transplant — and these are not hypothetical cases, most of us have had these cases — would you want your children in a building with students who were not immunized?” said Strawberry Mansion High School nurse Judith Cocking, who claims she has 28 non-compliant students.

The school district now says nurses can only exclude unvaccinated children on a case-by-case basis, meaning it’s no longer up to the nurses’ discretion.

[rebelmouse-image 19534861 dam="1" original_size="640x425" caption="David Haygarth/Flickr." expand=1]David Haygarth/Flickr.

Karyn Lynch, chief of student support services for the district explained that the recent shift was an attempt to standardize procedures “so that across the city, everyone is following the same process. To inequitably implement across the district would be inappropriate."

She explains that if an unvaccinated student is thought to have come into contact with someone who has an infectious disease, they will deal with it accordingly, but excluding all kids who are unvaccinated could have repercussions.

Parents in the district are less than pleased by this development. In fact, many are shocked and outraged that so many unvaccinated children are walking the halls of their children’s schools.

“I must say I was unaware and completely shocked that [vaccination] was not a compulsory requirement in the Philadelphia School District,” says Neha Ghaisas, whose son, Advik, attends Kindergarten at General George A. McCall School. “I feel that the school district should have the right to keep students away until all the vaccine requirements are fulfilled.”

Shiya Furstenau, whose son Jackson will be entering Kindergarten in the fall at William M. Meredith School, dubs the policy “unreasonable.” “I wouldn’t take my kids to a doctor’s office if they allowed patients that weren’t up to date on their vaccines,” she says. “It puts everyone at risk, especially those who are immunocompromised and our babies who haven’t been able to get vaccinated yet.”

Nicola Espie, who has one child at Chester Arthur School and another entering in the fall, points out that the mumps outbreak at Temple University, as well as the measles outbreak in New York, is proof that “we aren’t talking about a remote hypothetical.”

“People have the right to make medical decisions for their children, of course, but that right should not extend to affecting the public health and putting vulnerable populations at risk and the school district must do its part to protect our children,” she adds.

For Valentyna Abraimova, whose son attends Meredith and whose daughter will enter in the fall, the situation isn’t so black and white.

She explains that vaccinating her children wasn’t “an easy decision,” but because of the crowded classrooms in the public school system as well as the recent outbreaks, she sees the importance of it and hopes “most parents will too.”

She says that getting a nudge from the school nurse, as well as facing the threat of exclusion, is effective. Her son, Gabby, was missing his second dose of MMR. The nurse hinted that he might be suspended, and he got the shot two days later. “It might work for other families, who maybe just missed a couple of appointments or, like myself, are hesitant about vaccines and need an extra push.”

[rebelmouse-image 19534862 dam="1" original_size="725x479" caption="Photo via Pixnio" expand=1]Photo via Pixnio

However, another mother of a child whose daughter attends McCall who wishes to remain anonymous agrees with the school district’s stance: she doesn’t believe that unvaccinated children are putting those who are vaccinated at risk. “For a school of 800, there are roughly 80 who aren’t properly vaccinated, and there is a good chance they wouldn’t come into contact with one another,” she says. She also points out that the vaccinations these students haven’t gotten could be “low-risk viruses, such as the chicken pox or the flu.”

For mom Miranda Hall, the issue isn’t about vaccination itself. “The government should never be given the power to dictate someone’s medical condition as a norm. The occasional extreme, maybe, but that should be determined case-by-case. Choosing alternative immune support methods is not an extreme situation.”

As a parent myself whose child will be entering the Philadelphia school district in the fall, I firmly believe school nurses should be able to exclude students who aren’t vaccinated.

When I was attending school, nurses had the right to send home a child for any reason pertaining to health, because they were considered the school’s medical expert. Nurses, not administrators, go to school to learn about medicine, and we rely on them to take care of our children’s health needs. Why should district officials, with limited to no medical background, get to override that?

If school nurses aren’t given the opportunity to use their medical background and trained judgement to make that call on their own — especially in situations when there is an outbreak going on — the health of our children will be compromised. And if that practice becomes more widely adopted, the health of everyone in this country will be impacted, especially now that we’re dealing with more and more serious outbreaks.

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Pittsburgh is handling its racist statue problem in the best possible way.

Some people don't view Pittsburgh's Stephen Foster statue as racist. Those people would be wrong.

Yeah, I'm going there. Stay with me.

The statue, which depicts a borderline caricature of a black musician in tattered clothing playing the banjo at the feet of a regal, well-dressed Stephen Collins Foster — who is often touted as the Father of American Music — will soon be relocated. The city has plans to install in its place a statue of a black woman significant to Pittsburgh's history.

[rebelmouse-image 19346757 dam="1" original_size="685x1024" caption="Image via Wally Gobetz/Flickr." expand=1]Image via Wally Gobetz/Flickr.

The Foster statue has been a subject of debate in the city for decades. Damon Young, the co-founder of Very Smart Brothas, has called it "the most racist statue in America," with the depiction of the black musician as "the most ridiculous magical Negro you'll ever see."

Welp.

The issue with the statue is partially how it looks but mostly what it represents.

The statue was originally commissioned in 1900 by a local newspaper that envisioned Foster "catching the inspiration for his melodies from the fingers of an old darkey reclining at his feet strumming negro airs upon an old banjo."

Basically what we're looking at is a white man during the slavery era taking the "inspiration" of a poor black person's music and not only profiting from it but becoming the country's foremost music composer because of it.

If you ever wonder what "privilege" and "appropriation" mean, this statue primely illustrates both.

The appropriation of black people's music has a long, painful history in America.

[rebelmouse-image 19346758 dam="1" original_size="1024x1173" caption="Frederick Douglass. Image via J.C. Buttre/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Frederick Douglass. Image via J.C. Buttre/Wikimedia Commons.

Last year, I read "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" for the first time. The whole book is a must-read for all Americans, but the chapter about slaves singing absolutely gutted me. It also gave me a deeper understanding of why appropriating the music of black Americans is such a long-standing and problematic issue. Douglass wrote of slave songs:

"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains ... The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception."

Douglass described the tendency of people — particularly the supposedly more enlightened northerners — to misconstrue the nature of black people's singing:

"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears ... I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness."

Douglass' narrative was published in 1845, two decades before slavery ended and about the same time Foster began writing his famous songs. If Foster was really feeling inspired from black people "strumming negro airs," then he was profiting from black Americans' artistic expression of pain at a time when they couldn't do so themselves.

[rebelmouse-image 19346759 dam="1" original_size="342x470" caption="American composer Stephen Foster. Photo via Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]American composer Stephen Foster. Photo via Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons.

Some claim Foster was a fairly decent guy for his time, seeking to humanize slaves and not glorify the antebellum South in his songs. On the other hand, he was knee-deep in the blackface minstrel phenomenon, and some of his lyrics are racially charged to say the least.

"But that was a different era!" people might say. Yes, it was. But in this era, it makes sense to move that statue to a place where it doesn't serve as a painful public reminder of our country's history of racial injustice.

The question we should ask is "What is the purpose of a public statue?"

Unlike art for private consumption and enjoyment, a public statue traditionally honors someone or something. It's a way to memorialize a person or an event — to say "We want to not only remember this person's place in history but commemorate them."

Statues are not, as many seem to argue, a history lesson. There are no statues of Adolf Hitler in Germany for a reason, and it's not because the German people intend to forget his part in history. It's irresponsible to keep a statue that depicts an ugly aspect of history in a way that doesn't make clear how ugly it was.

A bust of Adolf Hitler sits among the ruins of the Chancellery, Berlin, 1945. Photo by Reg Speller/Getty Images.

Foster already has an entire memorial museum in Pittsburgh, so replacing this statue will not affect his legacy there. What it will do is remove a visual glorification of black people's oppression as well as open up a space to honor a black woman who has been significant to history.

The mayor has asked the public to weigh in on which black woman should be honored with a new statue.

There are no public statues or memorials honoring black women in Pittsburgh, a city where an estimated 1 in 5 residents is black. "The City of Pittsburgh believes in inclusivity and equality and ensuring that all can see themselves in the art around them," the mayor's office wrote in a statement. "It is imperative then that our public art reflect the diversity of our city and that we accordingly represent our diverse heroes."

Some suggestions so far include pianist Patricia Prattis Jennings, the first black woman to sign to a full contract with a major American symphony orchestra; Helen Faison, the first black female superintendent in Pittsburgh; Gwendolyn J. Elliot, Pittburgh's first black female police commander; suffragette Daisy Elizabeth Lampkin, who was the first woman elected to the national board of the NAACP; and Hazel B. Garland, the first black woman to head a major newspaper chain.

For many in Pittsburgh, the removal of the Stephen Foster statue would have been enough. But replacing the statue with one honoring a black woman is a thoughtful step forward — one that other cities with controversial statues would be wise to follow.

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