Slides used to be dangerous.
After climbing up those sandy, metal crosstrax steps you got to the top and stared down at that steep ride below. The slide was burning hot to the touch, a stovetop set to high all day under the summer sun, just waiting to greet the underside of your legs with first-degree burns as you enjoyed the ride. It also smelled like hot pee, years of nervous children with leaky diapers permanently marking it as their territory. Lastly, to top it all off, there were no cute plastic siderails or encapsulated tube-slides, which meant that if you went too fast or aimed your legs poorly, your shoes would grip-skid on the metal, and you’d spill over the side, landing face down with a sickening thud in a bed of pebbles, cigarette butts, and milk thistles.
It wasn’t just slides, either. Everything in the playground was more dangerous. And they were different and unique, seemingly put together by the neighborhood handymen who in a burst of creative energy one Saturday morning emptied their garages of old tires, 2×4s, and chains and just nailed it all together.
There were wooden tightrope beams suspended high in the air, daring the confident, athletic kids to attempt a slow, heart-pounding highwire walk while other kids encouragingly showered them with handfuls of sand and pine cones.
There were fire poles two stories high — just a cheap, simple pole planted deep in the ground. It was popular, and educational too, quietly introducing children to concepts like gravity, friction, and badly sprained ankles. There was a certain Fire Pole Form too, a kind of arms-on, cross-legged-spider-wrap maneuver that was both awkward and majestic at the same time.
And of course, there was my favorite — the Big Spinner, also known as a Merry-Go-Round, but not the kind with lights and plastic horses going up and down. This was just a giant metal circle that laid about a foot off the ground and could be spun, usually by someone standing beside it. If you were lucky you’d get a pile of kids on there and somebody’s mom or dad would kindly whip you into a World of Unimaginable Dizziness. A couple kids would fly off from the G-forces but most would hang on, teeth gritted, eyes squinted, cheeks flapping wildly against the wind, until the Big Spinner reluctantly came to a slow stop and finally let you off. Then you’d all walk away in different directions, some kids hitting tree trunks head on, others falling down nearby hills.
These days those classic playgrounds sure are hard to come by.
Everything is plastic now — unaffected by temperature, easy to disinfect, and bendable into all kinds of Safe-T-Shapes, the sharp, rusty nail heads of yesterday replaced with non-toxic washable adhesives poured from a cauldron of polymers and Purell. Now not only are our kids getting lame baby-approved fun, but just think what we’re doing to the tetanus shot industry.
Seriously though, new playgrounds sure are terrible. This guy agrees. So does this guy. They say that playgrounds have gotten too safe and become so sterile and boring that kids just walk away from them, preferring instead to hang out in the weeds by the railroad tracks or throw bottles in the alley behind the pizza place. Kids could actually be placed in more danger by these lame plastic netherworlds that encourage more video game time instead of fresh air and bruising. Another blow to childhood struck by overprotective parents and pesky lawsuits.
Well, we can’t change the world, so let’s just enjoy the good news: old, fun, dangerous playgrounds are not completely extinct. Yes, the Safety Conglomerate hasn’t killed all the buzz with their rocking horses two inches off the ground, pillowy-soft imitation sand, and stationary, bolted-on steering wheels. Old, dangerous playground equipment can still be found. They’re out there.
So please — when you find monkey bars taunting you from ten feet off the ground, extended see-saws that allow for maximum elevation, and rickety, sagging rope bridges with planks missing, please, run around like crazy, bump your head a few times, and twist your ankle. Because tell me something– is there anything quite like it?
AWESOME!
This post is in The Book of Awesome
Illustration from: here
186 Comments
July 18, 2008 at 9:50 am
What about tetherball and the chance to wrap the rope around your neck?
July 18, 2008 at 9:58 am
Nothing like sliding down that frying pan chute wearing shorts. 3rd degree burns in then span of about 6 feet. Wouldn’t trade those memories for the plastic bore of today.
July 18, 2008 at 10:04 am
Those old aluminum swingsets that pulled halfway out of the ground when you really got the swings going.
July 18, 2008 at 10:06 am
You westerners are soft. When I was kid, my playground was broken T64 tank and we play hopscotch around anti personel mines!
April 4, 2009 at 11:37 pm
On the grand tour of east Germany with the family, we came across a rest area with a HUGE slide, the likes of which my young American backside had never slid. So we climbed up the two stories of rickety stairs, hit our heads a couple of times on splintery 2×4s and waited in line to go down a slide so curvy and steep 2 of us almost went over the side and one of us actually did. And then we all piled back in the rental car and drove on, never to see so awesome a slide again.
September 10, 2009 at 9:29 am
Besides the mines, sounds cool!!!
February 6, 2010 at 12:44 am
Hi Bucky,
I’ve been googling for an hour now and just found your blurb. My brother and I (born in the 50’s) were discussing this exact playground piece of equipment, but I was unsuccessful finding much at all about the ‘flying merry-go-round’!!! I’ll keep researching the manufacturer (which I’m certain is out of business)!!! Let’s be glad we survived!!!
July 18, 2008 at 10:11 am
I guess I’m not the only one who hates the current crop of soccer mom approved playground equipment. I’m currently building a 200 foot long zip line from the top of my property to the bottom (large LARGE hill). It’ll also require climbing up a 30 foot ladder to get to said zip line as well. There’s also a tree house, standing 30 feet up as well.
All dad approved. Fuck these fucking soccer mom pussies who think little Johnny is too fucking lame to play on “dangerous” playground equipment. WE SURVIVED THEM.
Pussies.
March 20, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Amen to that!!
July 15, 2009 at 1:16 am
I bet you never experienced a severe head injury that almost took your life, the experience of seizures, never being able to play in sports, and having to learn so much over again in order to succeed in school. Spending too much time in and out of the hospital. Life long trauma experience of falling from a 12 foot slide on to the surface of cement!
To those parents out their who lost their child because the equipment was designed poorly and stranguled to death or had several broken bones from falling in between monkey bars or having their jaw shoved up into their skull from this equipment. Recently, a 3 yr old climbed up on the horizontal ladder at a preschool and got his neck stuck in between the bars. How long did it take before some one noticed this? How about reading the daily injury reports that come across the director’s desk because improper use of equipment, risky behavior, or children not using age appropriate equipment causes emergency medical attention? There is over 200 thousand injuries a year. Highest rate from falling from obsolete equipment onto improper surfaces. Read up on this buddy!
September 10, 2009 at 9:44 am
Does anyone remember that suspended-ring contraption that you grabbed onto, ran, and pulled your legs up to send you flying in a circle? There was a pole with a metal cap that rotated and had chains radiating down from it that led to a large circular metal bar (Imagine a big umbrella without the canvas). When there was an imbalance of kids, those on the light side would be tilted high up (I remember actually going into tree branches one time). My friend lost his grip and flew off into a fence – he needed several stitches – but they kept the thing up (it may still be there). I cannot believe this thing was ever deemed acceptable! Does anyone know what it was called?
September 24, 2009 at 1:36 am
I think it was called the Octopus. Just this summer we came across one in a little country park in North Central Montana located in the Sweet Grass Hills. My 87 year old father took pictures of his 50 something year old kids trying to hang on for dear life and ride it. It was great!
February 6, 2010 at 1:11 am
Jim,
I would love to see the pictures! Do you know the name of the equipment? I grew up in the Midwest, but all of the playgrounds have been replaced.
Julie
October 6, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Can you or anyone, tell me the name of a piece of back yard play equipment…it was metal, had 4 “spokes” with seats attached and we would pump with our arms and feet and go around and around…this is driving me nuts…hope someone can answer:)
October 31, 2009 at 11:36 pm
we are trying to find photos of this ride, did anyone know what it is called. i know it as the puke a lator.
November 2, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I don’t remember what this contraption was called but the 6th graders used to give the other kids what they called “high-rides” which Becky describes above.
The ring was jammed up against the pole with a several of us hanging on for dear life on the other end while they spun the thing around at top speed. It was a process of elimination, they would keep going until only one of us remained. I think there was woodchips around the immediate base but of course by the time you were thrown off the top end of the ring, a good 15 feet up, the centrifugal force would throw you well beyond any soft landing onto the rough asphalt beyond.
February 6, 2010 at 1:05 am
Ian,
Be thankful that you had wood chips!!! I remember asphalt! There are a group of us that want to know the ‘name’ of this playground equipment that I call the ‘flying merry-go-round’!!! Keep in touch!
February 6, 2010 at 1:17 am
Looking at another persons inquiry, she called it the ‘Octopus’. I’ll google the Octopus and see what I find.
January 5, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Here in NH, we had one of those many, many years ago and we called it the Witches Hat. We loved that thing!
October 28, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Lighten up.
July 18, 2008 at 10:11 am
I could not agree more.
Some of my more fond memories from childhood involved injury on (and off) the playground. It was the worst thing in the world when it happened; however, today I am proud of every knick, scrap and bruise.
One incident I will never forget was when I managed to get a 2″ splinter in my right leg while playing unattended and having to walk the block and a half to get home and help.
July 18, 2008 at 10:34 am
Oh yeah. My local playground had one of those big spinners. It was definitely awesome. It’s gone now, but the 10 foot long old-school teeter totters and the seriously high bar swing set with thick metal chains are both still there! (You gotta love small towns!) We always used to stand on the swing seats and try to swing so high that we’d get horizontal. There were 6 swings, so it was a real competitive activity. Good times!
July 18, 2008 at 10:53 am
The best part of the merry go round was the kid (usually me) who would get the thing spinning, then try to jump on, miss, and just hang on for dear life getting dragged round and round getting dirty and destroying his clothes (and legs) because of the dirt, rocks, and hard mulch that made up the playground back then.
And we’d get scolded by our parents…
And we’d get bruised, cut, and scraped…
And we’d cry when we got hurt…
And the next day we’d do it all over again…
And we had fun!
July 18, 2008 at 11:04 am
My elementary school playground boasted metal jungle gyms, see-saws and rickety swings (on which the chains had all but broken off and were attached by a half-hearted wrap around the bar above us), all firmly sprouting from rock-hard cement.
There was no padding except the little fat on our butts to protect us if we fell.
Knees were scraped, ankles were sprained, heads were bumped, arms were broken, and not a single parent sued.
Those were the days.
July 18, 2008 at 11:09 am
As a kid, I got the chance to play on both the wood and metal playgrounds, and those plastic pieces of shit. and all I have to say is shit sux.
But what’s it matter? kids aren’t going outside anymore.
December 18, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Hey, so, all I have to say is THOSE PLASTIC THINGS STINK. I’m jealous, honestly. Oh, how to wish. The only thing that was any good that we had (we don’t even have swings at playgrounds any more…) was the bar that held the monkey bars up. We’d run as fast as we could toward that bar, turn to the side, grab on to the bar, and be swung around about 4 times. That’s it.
July 18, 2008 at 11:16 am
In my small Texas town growing up we had an older kid named Jerry who’d been kicked by a mule or something. A little touched, but big, friendly and tard-strong, like something out of John Steinbeck. He could make a Spinner full of first graders pull 4 Gs. And while I suspect that those early merry-go-round buzzes may have led me to seek out the harder stuff later on, I still die a little inside every time I see some poor kid spinning a faux steering wheel.
July 18, 2008 at 11:20 am
I was taking my nearly 2 year old to the playgrounds in our town and I found one that had the old merry-go-round, metal slides and sky high monkey bars. I never had so much fun in my life, and neither did he! I wish those parks of old were still around in more places.
July 18, 2008 at 11:22 am
The kids in my neighborhood carry buckets full of water from the sprinkler to the top of the curvy slide. Then 3 at a time, they attempt to slide down the slide as one of them tosses the water, followed by the bucket, down the slide.
They do not tire of this. Who cares the slide is almost dry by the time they make it to the bottom?? They don’t mind having to drag their butts on the hot metal the last couple of feet to get off the slide and repeat the entire process all over again.
That’s the Ghetto Water Park.
July 18, 2008 at 11:26 am
I was on the “Playground Testing Committee” as a kid and got to travel around trying out the deathiest of the death traps and offering up my opinions.
A recent trip home revealed that my playground has been replaced by a middle school, sans playground.
Gone are the sharp-edge pea gravel pellets and metal bars suspended far over our heads on which the gymnastic girls made everyone feel inferior and require a trip to self-esteem camp.
July 18, 2008 at 11:38 am
What about homemade swings? Usually just an old tire attached to a tree with rope? Those were great. And dangerous! At least once a day you’d end up hitting the tree…LOL! Also, when I was kid, my older cousin set up a “tightrope” between the slide and swings on a backyard set and made me and my younger cousin “walk the tightrope.” When we refused to do it (after falling a few times) he twisted our ankles. Thanks, Cousin Howard!
July 12, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Hah! My neighbor had one of those for his kids. He suffered a serious concussion. It came down when he recovered.
July 18, 2008 at 11:38 am
[...] of old sigh, do I miss them. #980 Old, dangerous playground equipment « 1000 Awesome Things __________________ 1994 Lincoln Towncar w/ 112576 1996 Contour SE MTX loaded w/ 134592 1999 [...]
July 18, 2008 at 11:48 am
You can fix those plastic slides. Just put some ArmorAll on them for EXTRA AWESOME VEOLCITY.
November 29, 2009 at 10:27 pm
NICE!
July 18, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I still remember going down that hot metal slide, putting my feet down and lifting up because it hurt so bad, then of course my shoes would grip and I’d fly face first down the slide and face-plant onto the gravel, usually still with half my body still on the slide.
November 19, 2009 at 6:57 pm
the good old days, used to miss those metal slides. there used to be one around the corner of my house which my sister and i walked almost each day. the metal slide was HUGE! on the hot days we used to take our shoes off and walk up it. it was so grippy. and hot. just recently they replaced with a plastic bendy slide, and i have to admit. the old metal slide was safer, this one is just a 30cm by 4m tube thing. its horrible. there used to be a wood fort and sand and a smaller mustard yellow slide for the younger people. that soon went also, and was replaced by plastic. now theres 2 swings, the wierd slide, a metal fort with ropes going in any random direction ( we call spiderman ) and a hippo. i dont get the meaning of this hippo exactly. its a blue hippo about 1m long and 1m high, and has a cut out in the back, where you can go inside, on the bottom theres body parts and i guess its trying to make people learn. thing is. its in french. and this is in Australia. BRING OLD PLAYGROUNDS BACK.
July 18, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’m 41 now and really miss the old playgrounds. Monkey bars, jungle gyms, tall tall slides, all made out of steel. The see saw! What fun! I played on all of it, I also climbed trees constantly, and you know, the only time I got injured enough to go the hospital, it was indoors (slipped in socks on a floor, fell and cut my head open). I learned to hang on tight when I was off the ground, and I learned how to fall, I learned how to prevent my butt from banging on the see saw, I learned to stay off things that I wasn’t capable of handling. And I played outdoors ALL THE TIME!
July 18, 2008 at 12:24 pm
When I grew up we had two GREAT pieces of extremely fun “dangerous” equipment not listed here so far: The Eggbeater and the Octopus. Sure we had the slides that caused 3rd degree burns, teeter totters that could hoist you up 7 feet in the air, metal monkey bars 10 feet high and Big Spinners.
However, the Eggbeaters and Octopus were out of this world. The Eggbeater can best be described as a Big Spinner that is only 2.5′ in diameter and holds 3 people. All three kids would get the thing spinning as fast as they could and then pull themselves in to the center of the eggbeater to increase the centfical force. A good team of operators could get an eggbeater going fast enough that it was sure to cause vomitting and certain collapse from the dizziness…that is if you didn’t loose your grip and wind up chin-first on the cement surrounding.
The octopus was even more frightening. It was basically a sturdy 12 foot tall pole with a pivot on the top. Attached to this pivot point was a octagonal framework that was approxoimately 10 feet in diameter. At each point of the octagon there was a chain hanging down with a hand grip at the end. 8 kids would grab a hand hold and start running in the same direction as fast as they could. Eventually when you got the thing going a proper speed the centrifical force would cause you to start to lift up off the ground as you started to become more horizontal than vertical in your orientation. I saw kids loose their grip while at full speed and fly a good ten feet before landing on a piece of cement, a patch of gravel, or hitting a swing set support beam. Throughout all of this I only remember there being one broken bone, no deaths, and numerous scrapes, cuts, and bruises.
FUCK PLASTIC PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT! Give our kids the good shit!
March 11, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Jim,
Thank you for answering a question on my mind about 4 years — trying to identify the name of the Octopus. I lived in the suburbs but a playground near my grandparents on the west side of Chicago had one and it terrified me (in a good way!).
June 6, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I wonder if what you call the “octopus” was also referred to as “strides.” Boy, that was so dangerous. Half the thrill was missing the pole.
In another elementary school I went to next to the big slide there was an equally tall “slide” but the whole middle was omitted and the sides were round steel poles that you were supposed to wrap your legs around and slide or whatever. Nothing between you and the ground beneath. And if you were a girl wearing a skirt it was murder because your skin was stuck.
Ah, memories!
Also, at the first school I was able to talk my tiny little friend into being my teeter totter partner and when I got my feet firmly planted on the ground I could take ahold of the board and cause her to flip over. She fell for it every time. Then she moved to Australia and I think I know one reason for her moving away.
November 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm
thats exactly like the ride occasionaly found at fares and themeparks. the octapus. holds around 15 people, has a pivot and is replaced with seats.
July 18, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’ve got a couple of kids myself. My wife and I take them to parks all the time. My daughter thinks the plastic stuff is fun but is too little to get very daring. My 8 year old son, however, is hilarious. You know what the problem with “safe” playgrounds is? Kids get bored on them and will use them in ways they weren’t designed for. My son will climb up on top of the little playhouses on the swing sets around here. From what I’ve read elsewhere there are fewer injuries on playgrounds now than there used to be but the injuries that do happen are MUCH more severe. Kids will get bored on them and do stuff for excitement that the stuff was never designed for because that’s the only way they can have fun on them.
July 18, 2008 at 12:42 pm
my elementary school playground had this huge jungle gym made of old tires bolted together. actually several of them in different shapes. these were fantastic on so many levels. first, the rubber got ridiculously hot in the sun. second, they were very high & a bit hard to get a good grip on. and third, they constantly had pools of standing water (warm & full on insects, generally) in the tires from the last rainfall. they also tended to leave black marks all over your clothes. and yet they were, by far, the best things on our playground. screw safe & sanitary!! bring on dangerous & dirty!
July 18, 2008 at 12:51 pm
As a young girl, I was lucky enough to have dangerous playgrounds. I’ve crashed on metal bars, implanted many a gravel chunk in the knee and hidden in large, smelly tires, I even almost poked an eye out once! But one of my favorite memories was when this dumb kid got his head stuck in a half burried tractor tire. Priceless! He was there all afternoon. I loved that kid, and what a great lesson he was given. By the time I hit upper-elementary, it was all safety, all the time. LAME. So we tried to make the best of it by playing tag on the equipment and got yelled at. Grown-ups suck.
July 18, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I completely agree! Playgrounds these days are so boring. My school playground has old metal swings, a metal slide, metal monkey bars, and some sort of contraption that I once fell off of and slammed the back of my head into the ground whilst trying to slide down its 4 metal poles simultaneously (one for each hand and foot!). All of these were over gravel, not namby pamby recycled tires. Kids these days are complete wusses. We survived and had a great effing time in the bargain!
July 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm
The old playgrounds used to build character and parental bonding too!!! Remember when you would fall two stores and land hands first into the wood and end up with a 1000 slivers in your hands and knees? And you mom or dad would sit there and pull out the slivers one by one while you cried and after you got a freeze?
Today’s play grounds suck. They are no fun; I have to bring toys with me to keep my friends children amused. the only good thing left is the swings, but I bet soon they will get rid of those as well.
July 18, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I remember my first school has this large wooden, chain and tire setup. The slide was long and had a bit or a hump in the middle that everyone ended up getting snagged on and falling off or like 5 kids would pile up in the middle of it. There was a 2 story high wall of chains that everyone would climb up and jump off or sit on the top beam. Somehow I survived this horror without any hospital trips…it has since been torn down.
July 18, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Helecopter Parents, Once hippies turned yuppie. its imazing the difference two letters can make.
Excuse me while my son beats the crap outta your video game expert who thinks that shoveling your 5 foot suburban hell sidewalk thats covered with an inch of snow is (with a tear in one eye and a guido pouty face) “Too much work”.
I’ll stick to falling out of trees and having the time of my life…even at 25…:)
July 18, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Our school playground also had sections of 4ft concrete pipes to squatwalk or crawl through. But when you tried to run through one and didn’t lower your head enough, goose egg city! Man that hurt! And we had a steel rung ladder, 6 feet high and parallel to the ground where you hung by your hands and swung from rung to rung. But if you were cool, you got on top and walked the rungs. But when you slipped, you could break any bone in your body, hooweee!
July 18, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Totally. Kids are so coddled these days. Ugh.
Cool blog. :-)
July 18, 2008 at 2:56 pm
During the 70’s, our elem. school purchased “new” playground equipment which were called “swinging gates.” They were brightly-painted gate-type structures made of tubular steel which revolved upon an off-center axis cemented into the ground.
That lasted about a year, when the school deemed only 5th and 6th graders were allowed to use them, and some time over the next 4 years they were removed completely. They were the most exciting and popular equipment on the playground.
During the same time period, at my home, my sibs and I rigged up my father’s old ARMY parachute harness to an old 2″ dia. spring we found in the garage and hung it from a tree branch about 6′ off the ground. We’d take turns climbing the tree, slipping into the harness and bouncing up & down like a big-kid version of a baby “Johhny Jump Up.”
This went on for a while, with all the neighborhood kids having a go, until I bounced a little too much and/or the spring had had enough. The spring snapped and one part of it flew into the back of my neck, leaving a nice flesh wound. A few stitches later, and I was back in the garage, looking for two, much larger springs. :)
My elem. school-aged children now have the lamest “structure” on their school playground, and they are only allowed on it one day per week (each grade takes turns). They are not allowed to play tag, touch football, or anything that necessitates coordination with running and something else (a ball, tagging, cartwheels, jumping…)
Like another commenter above, I have also installed a zip line in my backyard running from the treehouse (an honest-to-goodness one which I helped my kids build 12″ up in a tree on the hill- not a “shed on stilts”) to the side of my house. Yes, sometimes they fall off into the compost heap. But that teaches them to wear gloves and wrap the handles with grippers tape.
My husband and I lament the good old playgrounds from our youth, where kids learned from trial & error how far their experience and coordination could take them, and gradually honed those skills.
Thanks for this blog and the other links!
July 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I remember those hot metal slides…and the tire swings that we would swing so hard to try and hit the wooden support beams. :) One complaint I have about those newer plastic slides is the amount of static electricity they generate…being able to shock someone to death just by touching them….and I do love those twisty slides. And I loved those ‘big spinners’, too.
July 18, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Ohh goodtimes! When I was 8, I was a huge fan of monkey bars (nice old school steel monkey bars)- albeit not very good at getting across them.
We lived in Oklahoma, so it seriously hot during the summer. Once, I was going across, and my hand slipped off. The heat ripped off the skin on the heel of my hand. So, I had this awesome flap of skin just dangling over.
…probably the proudest moment of my youth (aside from being valedictorian of my kindegarten class. obviously.)
July 18, 2008 at 4:12 pm
God I miss real playgrounds! I think there’s still one at Fielding Park in Sudbury Ontario. Just in case anyone else needs to go scab up a knee.
July 18, 2008 at 4:29 pm
When I was growing up, there was this slide/tunnel apparatus at the park. The slide was made up of essentially metal rolling pins. It was a blast! It wasn’t too hot in the summer, given the fact that the things would roll, but it was a death trap for fingers and hair. The roller slide was on top of a big concrete tunnel system. The tunnels were about 4′ in diameter and completely dark. They always smelled a bit rancid (a bit like urine and alcohol), but it was fun to hide in the dark and scare your friends. They tore it down, I think primarily because homeless people started taking up residence in the tunnel and the slide was a finger breaker.
However, I have been to a playground exhibition at a conference. Some of the new stuff is pretty freaking cool! Supposedly it’s all “completely safe.” I’m not entirely sure about that, but I think most of it was too expensive for community parks. Oh well. I guess I’ll just get my playtime in at conferences.
July 18, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Man, kids NEED danger. Just like adults. Don’t be wimps!
July 18, 2008 at 5:15 pm
No no no. It’s not a merry-go-round. It’s a vomit-mobile. My brother got his first set of stitches when he flew off one and landed on his head in the gravel. And to hell with the rubbery, flexible swings they have now. Bring back the bar of metal swing that would concuss you as you walked by, while someone had else had pumped the swing horizontal to the bar and was jumping off.
July 18, 2008 at 5:22 pm
My grandfather showed me a toy of his once… was and old putt putt (pop pop) boat.
All I could think of is.. “Why didn’t *I* get to play with that kind of toy when I was younger? So cool!”
The putt putt boat (see link) is a toy where you actually have to pour vegetable oil in it and LIGHT IT ON FIRE! Yes, grandpa confirmed, he was allowed to light it himself and would use it mostly unsupervised (he said father would be “around” but wouldn’t be directly supervising him).
His dad taught him responsibility… after teaching him how to work the toy and giving him some general rules he let him play. I remember that he was only allowed so many matches (they where the long wooden ones) and had to bring them all back even if spent… but that’s the only “protective” measure that was taken.
July 18, 2008 at 5:40 pm
The playground at my elementary school was the best. They had a mock wagon made of overarching steel tubes that could be used as monkey bars, wooden sides, and giant metal wagon wheels. They also had this small complex of concrete tubes you could run through set into a man-made dirt hill.
July 18, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Tall metal slides, monkey bars, teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds, and geodesic dome jungle gyms were playground favorites growing up.
Once a month at my elementary school, the playground aids would hand out wax paper so kids could buff the slide’s surface.
I broke my scalp open once by falling off the monkey bars onto the concrete below. There was no talk of lawsuits – just some time in the nurse’s station followed by stiches at the hospital.
I wonder if I can build one of those merry-go-rounds for my daughter…
July 18, 2008 at 7:14 pm
The one park i remember visiting as a kid had a huge (for me at the time) 2 1/2 story wood structure filled with fire poles and slides and moneky bars and random stairs and bridges. Local parents help built it and it was painted National Park Brown (who’s officical name is Picnic Brown).
I remember standing at the stop platform, so high above the ground, with a gaggle of other kids rocking and swaying the whole thing. I would walk away from the park with burns on my legs from the slide and a ton of splinters from the old wood.
It was the best.
July 18, 2008 at 7:15 pm
My school had the usual suspects – metal slides, monkey bars, and swings over cement, plus the boys all played *tackle* football on the field, no matter how many times the teachers or parent aides told us not to.
We also played dodgeball, sometimes with basketballs or those crappy hard orange playground balls. Red four-square balls were better, though.
Now, kids aren’t even allowed to play tag or *touch* football?
November 29, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Well, at my school you were allowed to play tag as long if you don’t go on the playground. But at the swing area we could play it.
July 18, 2008 at 8:00 pm
[...] #980 Old, dangerous playground equipment [image] Slides used to be dangerous. After climbing up those sandy, metal crosstrax steps you got to the top and stared [...] [...]
July 18, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Some one I know when I was young was on one of those metal See-saws high in the air, when the person on the other side jumped off. When she came crashing down, her chin hit the metal handle, and her teeth went thru the skin between the lip and chin. All the way thru. Good times.
July 18, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I still live nearby my old Elementary school and I sigh heavily everytime I walk by.
First it was the metal teeter-totters that went, then
the long swings which we would back up as far as we could go, run at each other, then twist around until the chains would twist no longer (pinched fingers). Now they are all shortened and have sawdust below them.
I believe the monkey bars were shortened twice. Some brave souls would walk across the top, many of us sat on the top and hung upside down, or we had WAR with one person on each side trying to make the other person let go by grasping them by their legs.
The Octopus we referred to as strides or handstrides. The Metal jungle gym in the kinder-garten playground was shortened. Even the big rubber tire is gone.
The worst injury I remember was someone hitting their head on the wood picnic table. Go figure, they replaced the wood table with a cement one.
Our first metal swingset had one swing and what I called a Trapeze. I remember being 5 or 6 and swinging on the trapeze and the whole swingset collapsed and I hit the dirt. Fortunately it was nothing serious. I was a little leary of the swingset for awhile, but I got back on and eventually it was replaced with a new swingset.
On the bright side, the big Cannon in our city park still remains.
Somewhere in the boonies my Brother tells me of a place called Teeterville which had some big see-saws or teeter totters. Tried to go once, but winter was very wet and the road muddy. Someday Though.
July 18, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Mid-70’s, 4th grade. We had an 8 foot tall, football shaped monkey bar structure in our school playground. We gleefully jumped off the top of that thing into small piles of sand every recess without a peep from the teachers who pulled yard duty. Although I don’t recall any serious injuries during my stint there, it’s long since gone and replaced by the 4 foot high plastic stuff–some kid probably busted his leg.
Somewhat ironically, the worst injury I ever witnessed at a playground occurred when a kid ran through a planter box, tripped and cut his temple open on a sprinkler head.
July 18, 2008 at 11:36 pm
As a lass, my elementary school had three playgrounds: one for the kindergarteners, one for the 1st-3rd graders, and one for the 4th and 5th graders. They were all of the splintery-wood-and-metal variety for the longest time, and they started replacing them when I was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. The kindergarteners got a plastic shitheap, followed by the 1st-3rds, and they replaced the third playground a year or so after I moved on to middle school. I liked the old playground – there was a high platform thing reachable by one of maybe two or three steel ladders of varying shapes, a metal slide, and two thick steel parallel bars set into the ground over some coarse wood mulch. I got my first detention ever on those parallel bars, after this mean girl and her friend pried my hands off of it while i was sitting on them and i, in response, punched her in the stomach. That might’ve actually been the worst thing to happen to anyone on that playground (falling face-first into what amounted to a pile of huge splinters and hitting my face on the opposite bar on the way down), and I lived. And that was only like seven or eight years ago.
Good times.
July 19, 2008 at 12:29 am
I’m the “real” David that posted first. I would like to say I’m sorry for calling you a faggot. Let me explain why I did this. See, I am a recluse. I live with my mother and am afraid, petrafied of going into the outside world. I am 39 years old and dread social person to person contact except with my mother. I called the poster a faggot because I can not handle face to face confrontations, and I do it over the web to vent. I do not have the backbone to actually confront somebody, this is a healthy release for me. My mother seems to think so as well, as she is tired of having to deal with me and my “episodes” from time to time. I am really sorry for being a lowlife, but, please put up with me. My mother does.
July 19, 2008 at 12:51 am
I miss the good old days at elementary school. Our playground was old and rickety, but so much fun.
We just had dirt as a base instead of gravel or those stupid little “rubber flecks” they use now. I enjoyed the dirt because my friends and I would grab small sticks or chunks of bark (which we aptly called “woodchucks”), and we would set away digging tunnels in the sand. We would start a few feet away from each other, dig about a foot down and then try to connect the tunnels without collapsing the surface. It was a great excercise in engineering. Also, sometimes we would make a pit in the corner and fill it with sticks pointing straight up, then put a plastic bag over it and cover it with a thin layer of dirt to camoflage it. As far as I know, no one ever fell into one, but that may have contributed to the removal of the sand.
We also had a big wooden structure in the middle that we called “the blimp. It was amazing. Essentially a large empty keg (only about 25ft in diameter) it was propped up securely and had a tire ladder coming up one side and a chain ladder on the other side. On top there was a platform with a big slide (like 30ft) and a 2 storey fireman pole. Of course there were kids who would jump off the railings at the top (like 25-30ft up) and try to land in the dirt and do a ninja roll to avoid the sprained ankles that almost always ensued.
The worst injury I witnessed on the playground was actually also incredibly entertaining (in a one-hand-over-your-mouth, “Oh sweet jesus” kind of way). One of my fellow students was getting ready to jump off the blimp mentionned above. After getting up the nerve and scanning the area below for potential hazards, he jumped. However, he failed to see the kids on the swingset about 15 ft away. Unfortunately for him (and the girl on the swing), they were the swings with the long chains and she was just coming backwards. They collided in midair. She got her hand caught in the swing chain and broke her wrist and got a huge bruise on her back from where his knee hit. He landed funny and snapped his lower leg and his forearm.
Interestingly, there were no complaints from parents, and the playground remained the same for at least another 3 years.
Those were the days.
July 19, 2008 at 1:01 am
oh lolz..your blog has me in splits.. :P but i have no childhood playground memories to share here, like others. :( oh hell :) how does it matter?
July 19, 2008 at 2:42 am
I love that old playground stuff
It’s all namby pamby stuff you can’t get splinters on, break arms off, and generally test your fears on
our kids are growing up as king wusses
BRING BACK METAL SLIDES WITHOUT SIDE RAILS!!!!!!
July 19, 2008 at 7:36 am
You seem to get a lot of traffic – why ?
Why not visit my blog for some REAL fun !!! hehehehe
http://nflfaninengland.wordpress.com/
Law.
July 19, 2008 at 9:04 am
OK, so I wandered over to see what all the fuss was about and I love this place. I was having this same conversation about playground recently. Another big difference: concrete! I still have knee scars from that concrete. (Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, to provide concrete for kids who are hanging upside down 15′ above the ground?)
Great blog!
July 19, 2008 at 9:26 am
hahaha, tell me about it, we need to go back to the old ghetto playgrounds. Nothing quite like the burning pain of sliding down sheet metal at a gazillion miles per/hour. Ah… the memories…
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
http://will86aber.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/penndel-borough-and-robbins-ave/
July 19, 2008 at 12:47 pm
We had a kick-ass swing set at the local Public School that stood about 12 feet high with thicks chains and heavy-canvass seats. We’d get going at a good clip and have competitions to see who could jump-off the furthest. We would launch ourselves like maniacs off these things!
One day my buddy Jamie was swinging and was at about bar-level when the chain broke on the swing-up and he was launched right onto his head – huge cocobonk and rocks inbeded in his head but he was back at it a few days later…
I visited my old neighbourhood the other day and walked around the old haunts after supper – No children were outside playing hockey or chase or marbles – nothing.
Man… when we were kids, the street would’ve been crowded with dozens of kids! Unfortunately, the old adage that says: “The more things change, the more they stay the same” does not apply here.
July 19, 2008 at 1:15 pm
AWESOME indeed.
just reading that post reminded me of that distinct feeling of dizziness on the Merry-Go-Round – the one you felt, just before you’d hurl!
July 19, 2008 at 1:20 pm
They took those awesome, 3rd degree burn inducing slides out of our local park. I would have preferred my kids play on them instead of what is there…one of those plastic covered monstrosities that is such bad repair that I REFUSE to let my kids on it.
I have fond memories of 10 kids piled on the bottom of the slide while the next kid in line tries to knock as many people into the splinter filled pile of wood chips at the bottom.
Luckily my kids have had the chance to use rickety old slides (not the nice style like you showed, but the tall metal ones with the steps behind) that are 10 feet high and about to fall over and nothing to hold them in. My 4yo almost falling backwards off of one. They’ve played on see-saws and fallen off or slammed into the ground when their sibling decided to just jump off. They’ve gotten stuck at the top of the dome styled monkey bars and gotten sick on the merry go round and fallen off of swings onto hard dirt below (not that rubber, recycled tire covering).
Most days I prefer the nice soft padded grounds and bizarre climbing structures (less chance of trips to the ER that we can’t afford) but I’m glad they got the experience of the old school playgrounds I grew up with.
November 29, 2009 at 10:50 pm
The good thing is that at the local park has a metal slide, but it has side rails and it’s not very tall. AND, the slide doesn’t get very hot.
July 19, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Very interresting… I’ve heard about many thing like this but it’s always funny! (sorry if I didn’t write correctly this comment, I’m French ^^”)
July 19, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I’ll always remember the merry-go-round at my elementary school because it wasn’t level. You could ‘walk/jog’ on the inner portion of it like an uphill treadmill. The speed you could achieve was unbelievable.
We would get the biggest kid we could find and have them ‘walk/jog’ as fast as they could, then grab a passing bar and hang on for dear life.
This gave us 3 games in one.
Who could hang on the longest.
Who got thrown the farthest.
Who took out the most innocent bystanders while airborne.
Great memories of days gone by…
July 19, 2008 at 8:56 pm
The best was when the slide was about 125 degrees in the summer. Very safe.
July 21, 2008 at 11:04 am
I actually wound up in the ER when I was 3 because of one of those really hot metal slides. Turns out leaping up and falling head first down a flight of metal stairs is not good for your head. However even i still hate the new plastic playgrounds they suck. You also forgot the newest risk posed by old playgrounds, they found that the wood ones leak aresnic.
July 21, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I just got back from Copenhagen with my 2 years, so it was basically a tour of all of Denmark’s most dangerous playgrounds. Got to love the idea of “hey, lets just pull an old boat out of the harbor and make it a playground attraction” That and we found one place with a 3 story plywood castle with tunnels, a real draw bridge, rope swings, the works. I loved the 12 foot high suspension bridge made out of only change, tree branches and rope. Though one thing i really admired, most playgrounds had cafes that served wine & beer, got to love the Danes.
July 21, 2008 at 11:28 pm
How did those of us who grew up in 1950s-60 ever manage to reach adulthood?
Slides? We had all-metal slides with real ladders! You young whippersnappers don’t know how good you have it! :D
No bicycle helmets either. But my most serious injuries were a couple of skinned knees and elbows. Knee and elbow pads would have been more useful.
July 22, 2008 at 2:17 am
satellite
July 22, 2008 at 3:48 am
Too true, too true. Childhood seems to have become so sterile and structured. I’m glad I got to have mine before they coated everything in plastic and got rid of “running around town unsupervised” as a favorite playtime activity. Play dates? There’s something about this expression that genuinely makes me want to smack someone. (Apologies for the rage, but seriously, it makes me feel icky.)
There’s just one redeeming aspect of the new generation of public play technology, and that’s those plastic ball pits. Those are fun. Cool experiments for you to try:
1) Can these things be thrown hard enough to raise welts?
2) Is there treasure down there?
(Hint: Yes, and, Yes!)
July 23, 2008 at 11:33 am
“We had a kick-ass swing set at the local Public School that stood about 12 feet high with thicks chains and heavy-canvass seats. We’d get going at a good clip and have competitions to see who could jump-off the furthest. We would launch ourselves like maniacs off these things!”
I wondered if anyone was going to mention “bailing out”. We’d get those swings so high we’d be perpendicular to the crossmember, then see how much altitude and velocity we could achieve.
… and I still proudly bear a scar in my left eyebrow from the stitches I received from a merry-go-round incident almost 50 years ago.
July 24, 2008 at 4:11 pm
We had a playground in the park that was dangerous. It was made of fiberglass, metal, and wood and set in a sand pit. About a month ago, they tore it down and replaced it with a safe playground, with rubber tiles on the ground.
July 25, 2008 at 9:24 am
[...] intelligence was drastically lowered by the fact that their dumbest weren’t killed on the deathtraps my generation called playgrounds. Their brains are being destroyed by technological distractions, and excessive exposure to Barney [...]
July 25, 2008 at 9:41 am
[...] More from the “We survived, didn’t we?” department: A paean to old, dangerous playground equipment. [...]
July 28, 2008 at 2:57 am
Haha so unfortunately true, I wish you were lying or being ironic with this article.
Good job!
July 28, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I can still see where the stitches went between my toes when I kicked the corner of the metal slide. And the two front teeth that are fake from the metal “seatbelt” bar on the babybucket swing smashing my mouth as I tried to whip it around the support bar up top. The scar on my knee that still looks like gravel when I took a header off the end of the slide. The scar under my chin from the teeter totter whacking me upside when my arms couldn’t push down hard enough to lift my sister.
Ahhhhhhh, good times. Thanks for the memories!
July 28, 2008 at 11:38 pm
When I was a kid, somewhere along the Aussie coast, there was one of those rockets… the ones where you climb up level after level until you get to this opening with a slide, or continue up further.
This one was unusual, it was at least twice as tall as any I’d seen before, and the slide was huge.
I had to have a go at it, and did.
What was really awesome about it though was that it stood on a cliff, way above a pristine beach.
and once you were up there, you’d get this incredible view of the area.
You could see the endless ocean crashing to the shore below, with shells, seaweed and foam.
And yes, it was very windy up there.
It was an absolute joy, something that would make a kid drool… and best of all it was free.
We went there a few years later, and it was missing.
I wonder now if it was really that big, or was it because I was just so small? either way, it was a true delight.
Wolfie!
July 29, 2008 at 12:15 am
I completely agree. Parents are way too protective nowadays.
July 29, 2008 at 12:47 am
Hehe.. no mention of the Witch’s Hat.. how sad… it made the Big spinner even worse! How about we make it a cone and then put on netting and set it on a pol that goes up about 10 feet?
There no plastic version of this wondrous death trap.. *sigh* that’s sad too….
July 30, 2008 at 4:11 pm
My local park still has one of those! I still enjoy going for a drink and hanging off the 9ft high bars, or spinning my friends younger siblings on the whirling metal disk that tilts unsafely to one side.
July 30, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Our park had this swing that a lot of kids couls use at once, which was basically a swinging plank.
When we got this squeaky thing going, the plank resembled a ram, and really packed some power.
Sometimes a dog or a person who wasn’t watching would almost get in the way, toddlers were especially prone.
Naturally it’s gone and our park is full of plastic slides which you can walk up without difficulty.
July 30, 2008 at 9:09 pm
We seemed to find ways to make the dangerous equipment more dangerous… at my elementary school there was a main playground, and some other equipment behind the kindergarten classroom… probably put there for storage and not meant to be used, but we always snuck back there because the swingset there had a 2 person swing, the kind that has 2 seats facing each other and you have to synchronize movements to make it work… and we always fit more than 2 people on it. That is, until we put 6 kids on it one day and the frame snapped. XD
August 1, 2008 at 8:20 am
Ok…everyone has these great memories of all this dangerous crap. This is great. I too am 38 and got to experience all the danger. I have many stiches and broken bones to show for it. Everyone here seems to think that kids are coddled. Aren’t we the ones allowing the coddling? It’s time to wake up folks! I am tired of the government keeping me safe from myself. Something really needs to be done.
August 1, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I’ve grown up in the age of plastic playgrounds, and they really do suck, but whenever I vacation with some family in Mexico, those old metal “death traps” are EVERYWHERE, and it’s SO awesome!
There’s this one thing shaped like a circle, with seats inside of it, and it has a pole right in the middle with handles on it, and the handles are supposed to spin the pole, which in turn spins the entire circle.
It’s SO much fun, and it’s guaranteed to make you dizzy as hell!
August 7, 2008 at 2:52 pm
At my first school they had a giant jungle gym they called “The Spider” only 4th graders and up were allowed on it. It was comprised of 6 ladders that stretched up and met at a cage like platform. As a 2nd grader I thought the thing must have been over 300 ft tall. One summer my mom took us to the playground and allowed us to climb it. Up up up we went only to be horrified by the height once we were up there. It took me what felt like hours to finally figure how to get down without dying, of course I fell the last few feet and hurt myself but that’s to be expected. The pride I felt at having conquered that beast was unimaginable.
I drove past the place as a teenager only to find that they had replaced all the glorious metal skyscraping slides with plastic counterparts, the sand and gravel with rubberized turf, and that they had completely removed any form of the merry-go-round. As for “The Spider” it was completely missing, a set of kiddy swings in its place. I took my visiting cousins there one afternoon and after 10 minutes they were bored. What about monkey bars so high that falling seems like it’ll be the end of you? Where’s the joy in always knowing your safe? Where’s the sense of accomplishment?
Static charged 2 foot slides just aren’t that entertaining
August 9, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Does anyone remember the money bars and hanging upside down by your legs and swinging yourself until you could let go and do an armless flip and land on your feet??/
THAT was the big thing to try to accomplish and it was all done on metal pipes welded together!!
Did we care that we fell onto hard packed dirt? Hell no!
August 9, 2008 at 4:19 pm
How I miss those pee smelling metal slides of doom, and the lessons of centrifugal force from the merry-go-round slingshot.
Kids are going to need a lot more imagination to hurt themselves.
August 9, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Ahhh .. I can remember it now .. the long metal slide that was blistering hot in summer and the faint smell of candle wax that went with it….
Well actually it wasn’t so faint every kid used to roll up with a candle in their pocket to wax the slide down and to make the ride so fast it hurt when you piled off the end head first…
happy times!
August 26, 2008 at 3:03 am
[...] that natural selection killed off all the dumb kids of my generation by letting them play on our lethal playgrounds. Seems like this sentiment is gaining some popularity. Good Magazine has an article in the current [...]
October 4, 2008 at 1:31 am
I remember once my cousin and I playing on a seesaw, one of us would sit on one end and the other one would lift up that end to the top and step off, so we’d drop a good 6-7 feet, and once I was riding one of those spinners and lost my grip and flew off, hitting my head on a metal bar in the process……good times
October 30, 2008 at 7:25 am
The funny thing is that a lot of these kid safe playgrounds these days still have those half assed tredmill cylinders that you can run on, that is until you slip and the hand rail in front of you kindly removes your front teeth…
November 11, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I fell off the top of the metal playground slide at our elementary school, and surprisingly got up without any damage at all, at all, at all… lol. And they were too hot in the summer, and you could catch your feet sliding down if you weren’t careful, and I wish I could get one for my kids and grandkids. Plastic sucks.
November 20, 2008 at 10:37 am
There has come winter :(
It became cold and cloudy!
Mood very bad :(
Depression Begins
November 20, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Depression Depression Depression aaaaaaaa
HEEEEELP :( :( :(
I hate winter! I want summer!
November 22, 2008 at 6:38 am
I remember back in the day when i would get in trouble if i didn’t come home with grazed knee’s. Gone are the days of playing outside all day, getting sprains, breaks, bruises and grazes. Kids today dont know how to live!!!!!
November 25, 2008 at 2:06 am
“Van
Those old aluminum swingsets that pulled halfway out of the ground when you really got the swings going.”
*Oh* yeah, getting the whole swingset rocking before launching out of them onto packed dirt! It was the best.
Our mid-70s playground had tractor tires buried halfway in the ground.. filthy, hot as hell, and full of spiders. I spent hours sitting in those. Not sure why now, but it seemed like fun at the time.
November 29, 2008 at 7:47 am
I very much love summer :)
Someone very much loves winter :(
I Wish to know whom more :)
For what you love winter?
For what you love summer? Let’s argue :)
December 1, 2008 at 4:40 am
Nothing like old playgrounds.
Here’s a bunch of pictures of old playground equipment from a company called ‘Game Time’, circa 1970.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040413022533/http://www.theimaginaryworld.com/gamet.html
Enjoy!
December 1, 2008 at 3:16 pm
while working as a play ground attendant I was rushed to hospital , injured by an item of play equipment , photo of scar to follow
December 1, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Great stories guys, parents definitely need to remove the cotton wool. I was fortunate enough to have played on a few dangerous playgrounds before they started disappearing. One was a 3 story “rocket ship” leaning a little, looked more like the tower of Pisa. Anyway they took it down after one stupid kid fell off it. I think they also took away the massive power pole swing, where the pole is lying about 30 degrees off the ground with a tractor tire swing attached. You could fit maybe 3 kids on that thing, often the idea was to go so high/sideways that gravity kicked in and the rope buckled, like a lot of swings. I guess too many dumb bystanders got taken out, I know I did once or twice… yet somehow I’m fine.
December 2, 2008 at 10:00 am
I remember the giant clown face with two swings on either side of his head, two people would sit on the swing while someone spun the pole the head sat on and the wieght of the two people on the swings caused it to spin, we played on that for hours until someone spun off..lol..and if anyone knows where I can find those old rocking horses that once the spring got too worn you could rock those babies to the ground front and back..I want one for my backyard or as many as I can find..hopefulhalle@yahoo.com..thanks!
December 6, 2008 at 12:35 am
We too have been sterilized by the boring playground brigade.
When I was a kid we had a huge steel witches hat that swung back and forth bouncing off of a big tractor tyre in the middle and also could be spun like a merry go round… pitty the kid that got their ankle stuck between it and the tyre… but hey! you only did that once thats for sure… playgrounds are seconds of fun these days – when I was a kids I’d be there all day long, without a hat or sunscreen!!! Ha Ha Ha, I am still here 30 years later to tell the tails to my kids!
December 6, 2008 at 1:02 am
I loved the merry go round that you had to push till you fell off! Those were the days!
And the swings with hard poles instead of chains, I never got it to go all the way over but know kids that did!
Too much suing everyone has ruined it for our powder puff kids.
December 8, 2008 at 12:28 am
if you look hard enough you can still find these type of playgrounds around – they are like hidden treasures, few and far between.
There is one near where i lived as a kid that has a slide made out of rollers – guaranteed to catch unsuspecting fingers and toes
December 10, 2008 at 12:47 am
We had a ridiculously long metal slide and poured a bucket of water and dishwashing detergent down it. You’d think the rest would be history but after very narrowly avoiding death a couple times and attracting a small crowd, we stole a long strip of thick black plastic off a nearby grapevine and set that up at the bottom with water and dishwashing detergent too. I slide straight down the slide, hit the plastic without slowing in the slightest and woke up in hospital having hit a tree. Good times.
December 11, 2008 at 3:41 pm
At the elementary school behind mine, they had a very large wooden and metal playground structure we called The Woodens. There was a 2 story-high metal slide, wide enough to fit 6 kids across. There was usually a pile of 15 kids at the bottom, more kids coming down the slide and going up it simultaneously, and kids jumping onto it midway after having wriggled through the wood beams. I miss the traffic chaos and the splinter- and burn-ridden danger of that playground.