Polar Bear Plunge

One local new years’ tradition (around here at least) is to take a brief swim in our polluted river on New Year’s Day. It’s called The Polar Bear Plunge or something like that. 100 people of all ages turned out this year.  Here are a couple of “cold” observations:

• ·        Some people turn out to honor the founder of this event who is dead. Imagine that. The guy who invented swimming in the polluted river on January 1^st died. I never thought that would happen.
  ·        The river is not clean enough to swim in during the summer. Is cold water cleaner than warm water? Do the pollutants and the germs freeze?
  ·        Some guys leave their shirts on when they “plunge”. While that’s likely appreciated by many onlookers, I don’t think that’s going to improve anything health-wise.
  ·        One guy went in and out of the water 5 times yesterday trying to set some kind of one day record. Huh-uh. Only one time per year counts.
  ·        That cool old diver guy from the AT&T commercial was not there.
  ·        The fire department was there with the rescue boat. Seriously? Might it be cheaper to have the police there and just prevent the swim? That would make too much sense.
  
  

If I were to have participated, would the “plunge” count as exercise on my new diet program?