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, 2x4s, 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. 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
haha. at my school, we play a game called roadkill. it’s where you have two people swinging at the same time, and you have to run through them! haha.
my school has the same, except they dont call it roadkill!
I used to do that as well, it just didn’t have a name.
We’d also play “swing tag”, and start swinging sideways on purpose, the intent to RAM HARD into the person on either side of us, avoiding as much damage to ourselves as possible, and not letting go or giving up.
I loved doing both of those when I was a kid!
Thank you for the memories. I also remember the swingsets in the park across from me. I could spend all day on the swingset…best fun was that we had HUGE, tall trees over the swingset, and the biggest kick was to see who could hit the branches first.
Metal slides and the scars and scrapes we got from them are trophies of childhood. Whoever did not go down the slide in the summer without crying was labelled a “Kindergarten Baby”. You went home and did your crying as mom put the lotion on your burned thighs!
And we had regular plain old dirt at the foot of the slide and under the swings. Depending on how fast you stopped the swing and the amount of scuff you did, you could make a nice deep hole….
What about the playgrounds that are all rubber floored…no grass. Anywhere. http://www.ci.watertown.ma.us/images/pages/N233/image001.jpg
There’s something about dirt under nails that validate that you’ve had a childhood.
Ah I know I miss the good old playgrounds, I’m always on constant look out for a descent-non-sterilized playground (even if others do find it odd when i insist we play on them:)
I don’t know about elsewhere but in Aus one on the best thing about some of our old playgrounds is the utter smoothness of our old wood playgrounds. The best one in Perth used to be inn Kings Park before they destroyed it, there’s nothing like a fine Jarrah playground smoothed (smoother than floorboards, or any other household furniture) by thousands of sweaty kids hands, trust me there was no way you’d ever get a splinter from it!
And a totally miss the wizzy-dizzy (or merry-go-round to you), some of the most memorable childhood memories include cousins puking cause we were on there to long, or discovering we could spin it our self while still on the wizzy-dizzy (without the need for parent interaction you can stay on twice as long :)
But their all disappearing. A couple of years back I discovered a new ‘safety’ wizzy-dizzy, it was like a capsule and you’d sit inside it and spin (it was a capsule so no-one could fly out, but you can only have 4 normal sized people in there or 8 littlies), they were awesome cause you could pretend they were a space ship, but now their deemed unsafe to, so their disappearing.
But then a new wizzy-dizzy invention came along it was a stick with a wheely-bit down the bottom for your feet, and a wheely-bit at the top to hold on to. But this was really tricky, we could fit 3-4 normal size ppl on (though i doubt littlies could handle it at all), and we could never stay on more than 30secs-1min. Don’t know why they bothered with it in my experience it’s 10x more dangerous than the classic model (though were were usually intoxicated when trying it out!)
at a school, I saw one of wizzy-dizzy you said at the end. I was the CHAMP! I could stay on the thing longer than ANYBODY.
Good times.
Except you could fit only 1 ppl on it. :(
I remember in my days the playground equipment looked like it was in a war.
I have been saying this for years! Why would parents deny their children all the pleasures they enjoyed as children themselves? The kind of play this equipment inspired encouraged physical activity and imagination that the newer equipment just can’t match!
Danger lurks around every corner…or so we’d like to think. The truth of the matter is that accidents happen, and learning comes from the experience.
I remember the playgrounds of yesteryear also. I remember swinging on a swing in my friends backyard and swinging so hard that it flew me on the ground several inches above the ground to come down and hit the sand and gravel and maybe black out a little and coming too and just getting up and saying that I was alright. No serious injuries and swinging like that again the next day. Those were the days. If I walked by a playground like that today I’d still take those challenges. I think that you can get hurt even with the playground equipment of today – the plastic slides can crack and you can pinch your skin in the cracks, the wooden ones can splinter and you can get a nasty splinter. Bring back our metal playground equipment anyday.
Does any one know where a person can find old playground equipment for sale? Old slides, or anything that might be available?
I was in Italy a couple of summers ago and found something amazing: playgrounds mostly untouched by lame plastic stuff. In Spoleto, there was this cool climbing tower/web that was made using a bunch of rope connected by plastic hubs. This other playground had one of those animals on top of a spring that almost sent me flying onto the mulch.
My favorite was the slide that looked like what bags come out of at the airport with the rotating bars. Super dangerous, yet super fun
It’s quite a surprise for me to read all these nostalgic comments and reminiscences. I live in Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia, and a merry-go-round exactly like the one on the photo is located right next to my house. I guess it was intended to be a kind of training facility, for it was extremely difficult to move, kids or no kids sitting on it. The rest of playground “equipment” mentioned in the article is also well-preserved and remains in its place. Come and have fun!
Yes, remember we live in America, where people sue to make a living!! I’m coming to your fun neighborhood.
I’m getting my plane ticket right now… XD
I was always to afraid to clib the fire poles when I was younger x)
But I agree, the playgrounds was much funnier before!
What company made the 1970’s style steel framed / wood seats “Witche’s Hat round-about”..?
I’ll love to own one in the back garden.
Any pictures / info would be greatful received.
Thanks
What about those slides that are built directly over sandboxes and that have a gap at the end about a foot off the ground, that are begging kids to try to get their heads stuck in them aas another kid slides down stomping on his face?
Haha! I have found a picture of one. But imagine this on hard, red dirt, and about ten kids on each of the monkey bars hanging upside down. That, my friends, was my life when I was younger.
content.calgary.ca/…/Playground.jpg
There’s a park in Sault Ste Marie that has not one… but TWO spinner-wheel things!
They also have an old train engine with a face painted on it for the kids to climb, but then they decided it was unsafe and put a fence around it. After that someone a painted a tear in the corner of the train’s eye …AWESOME.
Oh, that’s so sad!
… ^_T
But still AWESOME.
Hmm, the Big Spinner thingy, I called it the “puke machine”… And then there’s the one time (out of lots of times), when I was about 7 yrs old, when I ran down a slide, slipped and fell, and broke my forearm when it smashed against the side wall (folded metal part) of the slide… AWESOME!!! Honestly, a fond childhood memory…
Congrats on the award! Great site! I find myself agreeing with SO MUCH you have on here!
A fellow GTAer
And don’t get me started about home-made flame throwers made using a plant spray bottle (fine beam setting), filled with rubbing alcohol, and a lit candle held in front… LMFAO!!!
Let’s not forget the giant seesaws … and sometimes my friends would stand on their end and leave me hanging in the air, boy do I miss the good ole days!
This artical is really great!
I am a student who is working on my final project. Its about building a public playground for adults as for kids. I find it interesting to put back the old playground fun that can be used by adults, parents, teenagers and childeren. It will become to be a public “playground” space.
How the dutch designer Claes Oldenburg makes products ten time bigger is my inspiration to make that also with swings, benches, tires, slides etc.
Any suggestions to my idea are welcome!
Thanks!
Melanie A de M (The Netherlands)
…
3RD DAY 6TH GRADE. FRONT FLIP OFF TOP SINGLE BAR OF THE MONKEY BARS. COMING DOWN AND FOOT HIT ANOTHER KIDS SHOULDER. FACE PLANT INTO CEMENT COVERED WITH BLACKTOP. BROKEN WRIST, NOSE WAS PULVERIZED.
NOW I JUST JUMP OFF MY GARAGE INTO THE POOL.
YEAH I AM A REDNECK I GUESS BUT I HAVE FUN AND DON’T BITCH ABOUT MY INJURIES.
YOU KNOW WHY?
cause i make the happen!!!
I think this might have to be my most favourite. <3
when I was a kid, we had the metal slides but half way through they changed to the shitty plastic. So instead for fun two people would sit on the swings and we would twirl them together so the ropes would be together and then release them, and they would go flying. Or one would sit with their bums on one swing and their feet on another and then someone else would sit on their feet and we would twirl them and then release. It was the best game ever and we would play for hours!! AWSOME!!!
I think I was on the tail end of the dangerous playground equipment. By the time I was in grade 6 they began taking down all the good stuff from the playground. We had everything metal and there were trapeezes and all kinds of random bars and stuff around the playground. It was a small school, so we didn’t have a lot. Everyone’s favourite game seemed to be “who could jump off the swing the highest and farthest”. I can’t say I was the biggest risk taker ever, but the one time I got the swing to it’s maximum height and jumped off it, was the one time my jacket caught on the metal chain and slammed me into the ground ripping my favourite jacket up the side. AWESOME!
I didn’t even get a bruise.
The best piece of playground equipment was what we called the “Whirligig”. It was this big metal cone with a ring of wooden seats around it. Everyone would run and spin this thing as fast as it would go and jump on when the speed was up high. Every so often someone would trip and get smashed into the ground when the cone would tip. It was the best thing ever. Then some kid fell off of it after hours and broke his butt bone. They put bars on it so it wouldn’t spin and turned it into a glorified bench. Then we broke the bars off and got it going again. They took it down the next year.
At a park by McCullom Lake in Illinois, there was a piece of playground equipment that I’ve never seen anywhere else. It was a spinning, merry-go-round type apparatus resembling a hoop skirt attached to a center pole. The “hoop” was octagonal. You would stand on a one-foot-wide board at the bottom of the hoop (but about 3′ or 4′ off the ground). Someone on the ground would grab hold of one of the hoop’s supports and run around the outside, whipping it around while it would bobble precariously from side to side, like a human game of Tip It. And, am I the only one who rode her Stingray up the metal slide?
I believe my generation was the last to experience these pleasures. When I was in kindergarten everything was made of metal and there were rocks and splintery wood everywhere. I’ve suffered splinters, burns, and calloused hands from the monkey bars that grip your hands so the only way they will move is if you let go.
Also at this one park I use to go to there was a real tank that was sealed that me and my brother tried breaking into. I always wondered what was on the inside.
YES! My old school’s playground was fully wooden with giant tires you could climb on and jump off of into the mulch chips! Splinters every day and dangerous jumps for a five year old, but a party nonetheless :)
where can I find the mery go round?
We still have the old metal play equipment in our playground! We have these old swings that squeak when you go too high, this old horse that you push back and forth till it rattles an you’re hanging on for dear life, and we have this jungle-gym style thing. The paint on the monkeybars is peeling and it cuts into your hands when you hang from it, but that’s the awesome part. It used to have a slide, but this teenage gang burnt it down so it’s gone now. When you slid down it you got burns down your legs and arms, but that was the fun of it.
But recently, we’ve had this new mini jungle-gym and exercise equipment put in, and it sucks. Really. It’s all peel-proof paint and shiny, and doesn’t burn your hands when it’s a hot day. It’s no fun. But when my friends and I play out, there isn’t many other kids around anyway. They’re all inside playing on their PlayStation 3s or Xbox 360s. My parents said that in their day, kids played outside all the time. I wish it was like that now.
I posted on this thread a year ago, and it still manages to pop up on the top of my comments bar every couple days.
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A true liberal has risen to oppose Pelosi in San Fransisco, challenging her for her seat.
http://will86aber.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/trouble-brewing-on-san-fransiscos-homefront/
Playing British Bulldog. It was banned because it was too rough, but it was fun, made us tougher – guys and girls – and let me play with the big boys.
Most of it doesn’t bother me, but man, do I ever miss merry-go-rounds. And today’s slides aren’t fast enough.
There was a game we used to play when the teachers weren’t looking at recess. Someone would sit at the bottom of the slide, and kids would slide down sideways, one by one, trying to knock the people below them off. It was extra fun when a fat kid climbed up…
Padding/sand around the equipment instead of gravel is a good idea, though. I don’t see how that change by itself would make playgrounds less AWESOME! It’s just the rest of the changes that suck…
My thighs would stick to the giant metal slides, burning me and causing me to stick and awkwardly skid along the slide. To prevent this, I leaned back so just the cloth of my shorts was touching the slide. This caused my body to zoom down about 3 feet out of the 10 foot slide, terrifying me, until I put my thighs again and repeated the process all over again.
In the little town of Cob, WI, they have a horizontal barrel spinner-thing. It’s awesome. It’s tall enough to stand up in, so you can try to run up the side. If you have enough people, you could probally run all the way around it.
First off – I’m in search of a metal slide.
My friend, or so I thought!! got OFF the teeter totter while I was 12′ in the air. Did I come flying down fast! Love teeters! And the rings. Big old rings. You skipped to the 3rd ring, grabbed it and swung it hard, then went back to put your are thru the 2nd ring (while holding the 1st) to grab the swinging 3rd ring, and without breaking your arm as you grabbed it!
My 7 yr old and I look for trees to climb when we’re at a small plastic condensed equip. play yard. Maybe kids would get OUT more if playgrounds were fun. And if parents LET them out to roam the hoods. And if adults stop being SUE happy. Lawsuits to the city when you let your kids play there in the 1st place . . . ba-humbug.
I’m looking to purchase a steel slide to exit our home tree fort, or to slide from the roof! Did I already mention that? Any leads???!
I actually got severe 3rd degree burns on my legs and feet from going down a metal slide in the middle of summer. I was 3 years old, I’m 17 now, and I still refuse to ever go down metal slides because of it.
I say this all the time!
I hate how everyone needs to be babied and protected now.
Man they changed the playgrounds right about when I grew out of them..I was in that lucky last batch.
Stupid people sueing over everything. Psh.
I loved the way the cold metal monkey bars nearly pulled the skin off my hands..and swinging at a 90 degree angle on the tire swing at 4 years old.
So true! Man I miss those old playgrounds…..swings were the best. Seeing who could jump the farthest and face planting…..priceless.
Very very true, at my school, we’re still allowed to do that!
gosh, this made me laugh. and reminsce, and yeah, i miss the old playgrounds. i definitely miss see-saws. were those really that bad?
The best thing ever was rubbing the metal slide down with wax paper on a hot day- and then ZOOM!
yeah. At my school, they had an AWESOME playground, teenagers ruined it, now we have a baby one. AHHHHH!!!!
BUT,,, we still have a metal slide. :)
I have had my fair share of injuries on the playground. I cracked my left arm pretty good when I was 5 trying to copy the big kids going across the monkey bars. I lost my grip and hit it on a rock. Another time I broke my right arm when I was 8 by again losing my grip on a straight bar. The lower part of my arm went backwards while the upper part kept going forwards splitting my arm in two at the elbow. Of course all the kids came running to see the nasty break. No one had ever seen anything like it.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything though because after I came back from the hospital and went back to school everyone recognized me and I was treated like some kind of celebrity. There was also the added bonus of breaking my writing arm so I had to have a helper help me with school work and tests. My helper even gave me hints to the answers on tests! How awesome is that! Yeah for dangerous playground equipment!
Bring back the witches’ hat!
Bring back adrenaline fuelled playgrounds.
We used to ram that thing into the ground, and climb up around the sides until our weight would cause it to violently swing down. I never once saw anyone fall off it, or get hurt. It was sooo scary, but so much fun.
I want to know who was the moaning little kid that went waaaah, and caused all the fun stuff to get ripped out of playgrounds and replaced by totally lame plastic kitsets. I feel sad for my children they get excited by such places – if only they knew.
So, out with the gas ax, I’m going to make me one, anyone have some plans?
Here’s my blog entry about dangerous (but very cool) old playground equipment:
http://anziulewicz.livejournal.com/249345.html
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I still have a park like this near my house. Actually, half of the park is safe, stupid stuff, and everything else is just great. There is a huge metal slide, and an awesome merry-go-round, and even a swing set that is about 13 feet tall!
I remember fun times on that plastic playground in my elem. school, but then I realized all I did was swing on the swings and jump off the top of the spiral ladder.