Classic Rant #1,475: Jumping the Shark

By now, we have probably all seen the video of the professional surfer who punched out the shark during a tournament this past weekend.

I know that the video has gone viral, and that probably millions of people have seen it online and on television.

I have to tell you, it is remarkable what that guy was able to do.

He is lucky he wasn't, as they say, torn limb from limb by that thing.

I think the real question here is that others haven't been so lucky recently--like the teens in North Carolina who got attacked a few weeks ago--so I ask, why are sharks and other sea creatures seemingly coming closer and closer to shore?

I have no idea.

Does it have something to do with so-called global warming?

Is their food--smaller sea life--coming closer to shore, and they are just following them there?

Who knows.

Look, we are the ones who are invading their turf. We depend on the water for so many things--food, for one--that maybe it's like the situation on the current TV show, CBS's "Zoo," where the animals are finally wising up, and taking back what we have taken from them.

My wife is an excellent swimmer, and when we go on vacation, she is kind of leery about going too far into the water.

Me, I go in without a second thought, but I have to tell you, with all the stuff going on nowadays in the water, maybe my wife has the right idea.

I don't think the sharks coming closer to shore really want us, but they are protecting their turf, so they will go after anything that impedes them from doing that, and that is probably why they are attacking humans like they are.

I remember that in the 1970s, when "Jaws" came out, it stopped a lot of people from going into the water.

Maybe this was a knee-jerk reaction, but people did not venture into the water as much as they once did after seeing that movie.

But a generation, or two, or three, have passed since that movie came out, and these younger people know nothing about the dangers that could be present in the water.

Well, I think with this episode with the surfer, the millennials got their own wake-up call.

Maybe it isn't that safe to go into the water after all.

Like I said last week, I am so happy that I have my backyard pool.

Me worry? No, not as I bathe in my big bathtub in the backyard, no way, no how.