Sunday, February 26, 2017

Monkey Bar Memories

A playground in Montana. A time long ago. I'm the little-redheaded girl that looks as if she's ready to give someone a little help down the slide. We used to polish them well with waxed paper to get even more speed out of them. I found this photo as I was going through a box of my late brothers things, finding a place for them in our home.

 I remember that day.  Big Bro was going to go swing like a monkey from the monkey bars.  He was safe. . . for now.

Have you noticed that some the playground equipment has been seriously lawyered up since you and I were kids?

The slides are now about four feet tall and have bumpers and areas of thick soft mulch to fall in (we had rocks). Monkey bars are getting harder and harder to find, and the ones out there aren't exactly high off the ground (oh no, I might fall 3 feet!)
What happened to that merry go round that was the childhood equivalent of a G Force accelerator. If you got going fast enough with a siblings help, hanging on by one hand, you could get up to about 2 g's. Or come flying off and break a tooth as I did and get banned from the playground for a few days. Then, there was the teeter totter (lever and fulcrum = initiate launch sequence!) Yes, we had discipline, the 9th and 10th amendment were alive in our parents hearts, but Mom and Dad let us get a few bumps and bruises along the way, so we'd learn, not only our limits, but how to take care of ourselves. I wouldn't have it any other way.

5 comments:

  1. ambisinistralFebruary 27, 2017 at 6:28 PM

    For a second I thought Borepatch was a redheaded girl. That didn't match my mental picture if him!

    ReplyDelete
  2. KenFebruary 28, 2017 at 4:05 PM

    Our thing was to get on the big swing set, swing until we were about level with the crossbar, and bail out (Eject! Eject! Eject!). :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. WillFebruary 28, 2017 at 10:12 PM

    We moved to Phoenix in the middle of winter ('63?), when I was about 10yo. First day during recess, I hit the Monkey Bars. Two or three crossbars, and I was heading for the nurse's station. Burned both hands.
    No idea why they had metal construction in the recess area, as none of it was touchable during school hours.

    ReplyDelete
  4. GooberFebruary 28, 2017 at 11:06 PM

    Playground equipment isn't really softer, smaller, and safer. You just grew up and got big so it doesn't look so high, so big, so imposing. I went to a park I grew up near recently. The memory I had was of a 50 foot tall slide.

    Reality? I now stand taller on flat feet than its highest point.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ProudHillbillyMarch 1, 2017 at 6:21 PM

    Oh, yes, the merry go round - many a scabbed knee from tripping while pushing it and being dragged for a moment before I let go. And a playground that our parents took us to occasionally had a real USAF jet that we could climb all over. I fell off the thing once and WOOMPH! got the air knocked out of me. Funny, though, I seem to have survived all those dangerous parks.

    Oh, yeah - it was sort of fun to suddenly get off your end of the see saw when your sister was on the high end...

    ReplyDelete

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