Letter to the Editor: Congratulations to Patti Machado
Congratulations to Patti Machado on her retirement earlier this month from the Barnstable Recreation Division.
Being a boss to teenagers seems like a nightmare. To make it through a day is impressive, never mind 38 years — and to find the time to collect so many awards along the way, not to mention shaping some of those hapless adolescents into functioning adults.
Patti was in charge of aquatics when I was a lifeguard for the town of Barnstable. She did much more for me than she needed to, and I’m certain this is true for many of the lifeguards she has overseen in her career. She showed us — people who might be impressed with themselves merely for showing up in the right place, vaguely near the right time — trust, and made us feel responsibility.
She taught us that customer service was something you did no matter what. You kill them with kindness, I still hear her say, in my first introduction to the idea of maybe allowing just a blip of a thought between stimulus and response.
When you work for the rec, whatever discipline you receive is doled out in points. Patti gave me a few, but I deserved every one of them. I’m sorry that I took all the emergency hoses to Kalmus to build that slip and slide, but nothing burned down. She never skipped sensitivity training and made sure that even flaky teenagers could empathize with the challenges faced by people we might get a chance to serve.
We walked around town hall in flippers. We made PB&J sandwiches blindfolded, which also taught us about how badly we need one another, even if we wouldn’t admit it. Accessibility was important at the town of Barnstable beaches, and it still is, and she said so.
I know that Barnstable is a much better place because of Patti’s impact, but that many other places are, too, because of the young adults that she helped form. So thank you, Patti, and congratulations on your well-deserved retirement. May your fulfillment grow as the people you have mentored reach farther out into the world.
John Corsino, Marstons Mills
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Congratulations to Patti Machado on retirement from barnstable rec
