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Recreation
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City of Roswell
P.O. Drawer 1838
Roswell, NM 88202-1838
(505) 624-6700
Fax: 624-6889 |
THE LEISURE INCIDENT
"Listening"
September 13, 2025
Kim Elliott, CLP
Recreation Director
City of Roswell
Sometimes it is important to just listen! As a
whole, we do not listen very well. We have a tendency to only "hear"
what we want to hear! Hopefully, as a nation, state and community we can do a
better job of listening.
Maybe we should slow down just a little, and
really, and I do mean really, listen to the truths that has been said by some of
our greatest. What follows are excerpts from The Daily Dose
compiled by Jodi L. Rudick.
Let's listen!
"The way to get started is to quit talking
and to start doing." Walt Disney
"If you observe a really happy man you
will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his children,
growing Double Dahlias in his garden."
W. Beran Wolfe
"It is in the compelling zest of high
adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme
joys." Antione De Saint-Exupery
"Always leave enough time in your life for
something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an
effect on economic well-being than any other single factor."
Paul Hawkins
"No man is a failure who is enjoying
life." William Feather
"Happiness consists in activity. It is a
running stream, not a stagnant pool."
John Maon Good
"Not what we have, but what we enjoy
constitutes our abundance." Henry
David Thoreau
"There is a vast difference between
standard of living and quality of life."
Unknown Author
"The real joy of life is in its play. Play
is anything we do for the joy and love of doing it, apart from any profit,
compulsion, or sense of duty. It is the real living of life with the feeling of
freedom and self-
expression. Play is the business of childhood,
and its continuation in later years is the prolongation of youth."
Walter Rauschenbusch
"Writing off parks as an unaffordable
elitist frill would be a hideous city-killing mistake."
The New Yorker Magazine, excerpt from "Winning Support for Parks and
Recreation"
"Parks and gardens alone cannot solve the
problems faced by our cities, but they are crucial to the health of urban
communities. We need to take seriously the evidence that open space counts in
human lives and that places where we play can be places of hope."
Martin J. Rosen
"Recreation is no longer simply having
fun. Rather it involves the kind of America we have, and want to have, and the
kind of people we are and are likely to become."
Laurence S. Rockefeller
"Parks and recreation support lovers,
mourners, teachers, movers and changers. It is an amenity with all the
characteristics of a necessity."
The New Yorker Magazine, excerpt from "Winning Support for Parks and
Recreation"
"People hate taxes the way children hate
brushing their teeth--and in the same shortsighted way." Paul A. Samuelson,
American
"In my view, wholesome pleasure, sport and
recreation are as vital to this nation as productive work and should have a
large share in the national budget."
Walt Disney
"It's the leisure hours, happily used,
that have opened up a new world to many a person."
George M. Adams
"In the quiet of nature, you get the
solitude and presence of mind to deal with the significant issues of your
life." Valerie Andrews
"This country will not be a good place for
any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live
in." Theodore Roosevelt
"Seven days without parks and recreation
makes one weak." Jodi Rudick
"You were intended not only to work, but
to rest, laugh, play and have proper leisure and enjoyment. To develop an all
round personality you must have interest outside of your regular vocation that
will serve to balance your business responsibilities."
Grenville Kleiser
Happiness, creativity, taxes, economic
vitality, productivity, standard of living, quality of life; these are all
aspects of the benefits that parks and recreation provide to you and your
community.
Maybe it is time to listen a little better to
what we know to be true.
Parks and Recreation! The Benefits Are Endless...TM
