The first Saturday of every month is National Play Outside Day. A Good Men reader reflects on the playgrounds of the past.
The jungle gym of the 1950s consisted of multiple grids of galvanized pipe bolted together about every 2½ feet. They were easy to climb, hard to fall off of, but easy to bump your head upon.
The metal slide was blistering hot in the summer and the wood handrails on the old models were weathered with age. You couldn’t hold on to the edge because you’d get splinters. A thick ½ inch sliver of wood went up my elbow one time; it’s still there. The best slides were 20 feet off the ground.
The merry-go-round was the most popular – and the most dangerous. Kids would stay on until they puked with dizziness. Children would try to enter the spinning platform, misjudge the speed, and hit their teeth on the iron handles.
Other kids would leap off the spin cycle of the merry-go-round and hit the ground tumbling. Eight-year-olds would sit with their feet hanging off the edge, a five-year-old would come walking by and get kicked in the gut or butt.
A horizontal ladder allowed us monkey-boys to cross a 12-foot span, hand over hand, with legs a-dangling. I wouldn’t stop until I got huge water blisters on my hands. I’d pop them and peel the dead skin off of my raw, red palms. But a few days later, I’d be back on the monkey bars!
And then there was the seesaw. It gave kids a sense of balance – and splinters covered with lead paint. It allowed pre-teens a platform to walk up one side, balance on the fulcrum, and step down the other side.
Once in a while, one kid would actually sit on one end of the teeter-totter, another kid on the other, and they would rock back and forth. But only for a while. Invariably one kid would try to jolt the other one off. Souvenirs from this apparatus included tailbone injuries, chipped teeth, and crushed fingers.
Nowadays, playgrounds have climbing walls, tic-tac-toe boards, make-believe steering wheels, and pipes that can convey voices between playmates. A plastic ball pit may have replaced a sand box but because of germs, these are becoming rare as well.
Gone are the colorful cast-iron animal swings and rockers mounted on an automotive spring. These 60-pound pieces of metal were great for busting heads and the springs for smashing fingers.
You may find a suspension bridge or a zip-line on today’s playground, all positioned above a ground covered in a rubber mat or foam padding – instead of a surface of concrete or asphalt.
Playgrounds still have slides (plastic, not metal) and swings (now for kids with disabilities, yay!) but most of the dangerous fun stuff has been removed. In an effort to minimize harm on the playground, schools and parks actually minimize enjoyment.
Is there a correlation between risk and fun? Does play in a precarious environment actually teach kids to be more careful? More research is needed.
In the meantime, tell the kids to give the video games a break and let’s go play outside!
Previously published in the Sandyland Chronicle.
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