Playgrounds are becoming such tepid places. Tall metal sliding boards, see-saws, jungle gyms and merry-go-rounds are slowly vanishing, lest some unfortunate child chip a tooth and the local recreation commission gets sued. Even swings are falling under suspicious and litigious gazes. And surfaces of packed dirt or gravel? Oh NO NO NO NO NO! Only layers of shredded foam rubber are safe enough for our precious kids these days. Eventually playgrounds will likely consist of nothing but big piles of pillows, not unlike what kids will eventually become.
I'm reminded of one delightfully dangerous piece of playground equipment that, alas, has been LONG gone from the Great American Playground:
It rotated like a merry-go-round, but even better, it TILTED in its central axis. There used to be one at Westside Park in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, the town where my mother grew up. Every time our family drove there to visit my grandparents, my cousins and I would have a BALL on this wonderful ride. I'm not sure what it was properly called, but my cousins called it a "Bar-Bell," presumably because it tilted like a bell and was suspended atop a stout metal bar.
DANGEROUS? Oh you betcha. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see how chains have been attached to keep the bar-bell from tipping too steeply, because naturally it was tempting for kids to stand INSIDE the framework, where they risked being smooshed between the framework and the central pole. But then again that's what used to be so fun about being a kid! Sadly, though, by the late 1970s that wonderful piece of playground equipment had vanished from Westside Park.
But if you think THAT looks like dangerous fun, how about the "Giant Strikes"???
Now HERE was a piece of cool playground equipment that was before MY time. Whereas the Bar-Bell had a ridged circular seating platform suspended from a central pole, the pole on the Giant Strikes only had metal handles suspended from chains, and the fun came from hanging on for dear life while running faster and faster. Here's a really ancient photo of this wonderful device:
Those swinging metal handles probably caused countless bruises, chipped teeth and bloody noses. But isn't that part of what being a kid is about?
