Posted on 01/09/2019 10:17:38 PM PST by vannrox
The words, written in big, white, Impact letters, caught my attention as I scrolled idly through Facebook a few months ago: IF YOU REMEMBER THIS, THEN YOUR CHILDHOOD WAS AWESOME. They were superimposed on an image that did instantly remind me of something: the SuperPlayground, a wooden play structure in a small park in my hometown, which was torn down and replaced several years ago. In the small, lefty community of Sebastopol where I grew up, in the wine country north of San Francisco, there were many playgrounds, but the SuperPlayground was everyones favorite. Whimsical details like a dragon slide, pyramid-framed swings, and pointed wooden towers separated it from the many plastic and metal pre-fab structures elsewhere around town. But best of all were the secrets the structure held: the wooden tunnels underneath it big enough only for young children, the corner where a PVC pipe embedded in the wall allowed you to whisper to your friend across the park. There were always places to hide and discover away from prying adult eyes.
It seemed likely that someone from Sebastopol had created the meme. But to my surprise, the original image post had over 30,000 likes (and now over 76,000). Scores of comments enthusiastically identified the playground as Wonderland Park in Wasilla, Alaska, or Imagination Station in Roxbury, New Jersey. Small arguments erupted between people who were sure this photo was taken in different locations around the country. What was going on? Was this treasured childhood memory just another cookie cutter experience created for me by some corporation?
To find out, I had to go back to the 1970s in Ithaca, New York, when a young architect built his first playground inspired by his childrens ideas, to the early 1980s, when the playground safety movement began (with a brief
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Yeah, I don’t remember it either. I loved Sebastopol. After we we returned from the PI the 2nd time my aunt Sal and Uncle Hank gave us space in their house to live while my dad looked again for a job.
I loved the sense of safety I had in that little town. I remember playing on the play ground of maybe the park and getting some horrendous bruises. I absolutely loved the monkey bars but since we wore dresses to school, I never played there during school.
I remember being able to go out alone to a stand of pine trees several blocks from my Aunt Sal and Uncle Hank (Davis’s) house and walk to where the air smelled so clean and fragrant it was bliss. I would lie down on the needles and day dream. It was quiet, absolutely serene. As a child with PTSD, I see it now as a critical time for a tad of healing.
I have not been back there for years. Maybe 60 years. I, too, do not remember the super playground but it may have been built after I lived in Sebastopol. I will never forget the monkey bars!! Not ever.
When I was really little, I had to wear dresses to school, but I don’t think that was a requirement when we moved to Sebastopol, when I was 7. I loved the monkey bars, too. I did stuff that would probably send today’s helicopter parents into hysterics. Back then, all kids were free range.
Ah yes, the “Iron matrix of DEATH” or Jungle Gym. LOL!!!
I remember one like this but it was welded and the connections smooth. There was a pole (fire pole) in the center with a tiny platform on the top made from a grid of same sized pipe as the rest of the structure. I never gathered the nerve to climb on top and stand on the platform .
“I remember monkey bars”
Great picture.
I remember the one at our elementary school. Made of galvanized pipe joined with threaded fittings. I detest the mass produced bloated plastic and steel things they are putting on playgrounds everywhere now.
I liked the thing that would spin around and If you stayed on long enough you would yak.
I also used a line from some movie I saw to come up with a game for it. The idea was to have defenders on the spinner with attackers trying to jump on while it was moving. Defenders tried to knock off attackers. Upon successful knock off you shouted out “nobody rides for free!”
I got in trouble for running that game.
You were lucky.
We just had a big square cube of monkey bars! And I remember...
Teeter totters. The long ones you could fit two kids on each end. There was always some cruel kid who would jump off the low end while you were high in the air.
Four square courts painted on the asphalt or concrete.
Swing sets.
Ladder bars. Useless, not fun, unless you tried to walk over the top while other kids were going hand over hand just to see if you could do it without killing yourself or stepping on their fingers!
As a boy, never understood hopscotch, but...liked watching the girls play until I reminded myself they were the enemy!
Loved the merry go round thingie. We would get a couple of people in the middle, at least four people on the outside, boys usually, facing the same direction, one leg folded under you, the other foot on the ground and would begin in unison to make that thing spin until the people in the center would scream to stop or all the guys on the outside would be flung off!
Was never able to make a swing go over the top of the bar, though I did get it high enough to launch myself dangerously out of as it swung towards its apogee!
Usually from boys trying to walk around on the top with no hands! Been there!
The merry go rounds that you and your buddies could stand next to and get spinning so fast that no one or nothing could stay on.
Hahahahahaha....YES!
On top, with arms held out to the side: “SEE ME WALK THE IRON MATRIX OF DEATH! SEE...er..ugh..WHAM-WHAM-THUD!”
Followed by a a dazed, uncomprehending hand to the mouth covered in blood and pieces of front teeth, all while seated on the ground surrounded by a perfect circle of other kids!
Invariably followed by “Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith!” as a pitter-patter of running feet echoed from some girl running away towards the elementary school!
HaHAHAHAHAHA! Yes, that is the one...see my post at 27...with a concerted effort, you could make that thing really go if it was in decent shape, not rusted.
Cabin John Park in Bethesda, MD had such a playground when my kids were young. Made me wish I was young again. Fools have torn it down since.
When I was 5 I got on one with a bunch of bigger kids that got it going pretty fast and had a good time till I lost my grip and flew off and cut my head open.
That was back in the good old days when your parents would take you to the emergency and get you stitched up and went about your life. No law suit or demand that it be taken away. Heck, I was probably on it the next week.
there is a T-33A jet and an old fire truck in oak meadow park around here ..
There is a privately owned youth camp in Maryland that I rent out weekend camps for our Trail Life USA troop.
They have a playground area with tons of homemade games and challenges.
Seesaws, balance beams, a short climbing wall on the trunk of a massive tree stump, a climbing net. But the real attraction is the swings. The seats are round cuts of lumber about the size of a Frisbee with a single rope in the center. The rope is about 40’ long tied off to a cable strung between two tree branches 50’ off the ground.
Last year, the weather turned and it was about 20 degrees out. I looked up at about 5:30 am and most of the kids, as young as five were already out playing and screaming.
I said “cool” and went back to sleep.
The benefits of unstructured play.
I remember those merry-go-rounds! There was one in the park across the street from my grandparents house in Tucson, we spent hours playing on it.
I remember we had a large merry-go-round that had arms that hung down and attached to a wooden bench that went all the way around the outside. The arms were on ball joints, so you could make it sway side-to-side while it was going around. Lots of fun on that one. We also used to have contests to see whether the merry-go-round would go clock-wise or counter-clock-wise - the two teams were usually ‘John Deere’ and ‘International’ (we lived in Iowa)!
yes, so were ours, post WWII construction I’m guessing, after thousands of welders were unleased in the private sector. I recall the pipes being slick and shiny from use, no need for paint. Hand and clothing polished, LOL.
The fireman pole would have been welcome in our playground. And yeah, the climbs were a bit scary at first, but exhilarating after you mastered climbing technique...monkey bars as we called them, so Un-PC.
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