Thrill is gone

Calgary Sun ^ | 2005-10-13 | Michael Platt

[woofie]

I want one....good work

[Clive]

When I was nine I started going off the high board.

I could not swim but my technique would be to go to the bottom then push off at an angle so that I broke surface just at the right place to grab the ladder.

That was until my dad came to fetch me one day and arrived just in time to see me going off the tower. He finked to the teen lifeguard that I had not passed any swim badges so I was barred from the tower until I got a Red Cross badge.

[Junior]

When my dad was stationed in Washington, D.C., back in the early '70s, my mom would take us to Wheaton Regional Park to allow the four of us to burn off some energy. They had an old Air Force fighter jet that had been gutted and turned into playground equipment. We'd climb through the engine nacelles (which still had some carbon in them, so we come out a little grayer than when we went in) run up and down the wings and the fuselage, and the bravest would inch their way along the sloping nose to grab the pointy thing in the front.

It's probably gone now.

[Hardastarboard]

I remember when the swing seats were a 1" thick piece of oak bolstered by aluminum or iron mounts to the chain that you AND a friend could sit on, and it would hold you. Of course, I also remember the teacher telling us six times every recess not to go near the swings, and the blood and stitches on a buddy's forehead when he failed to heed that advice. Those swings were still a lot more fun than the limp rubber things that hurt your hip bones when you just sit in them.

[RobFromGa]

I remember that we used to have elaborate handmade slingshots that got more powerful the older you got. Every kid in the neighborhood had one and shot many rocks with them. I don't remember anyone ever shooting one at another kid.

We also had an old stable on our small lot which we called "the Horsey House". We built an elaborate fort in the attic of this small outbuilding as well as multiple escape routes (through windows and the roof, as well as a rope line.

[bvw]

Nice!

[MarkL]

This is exactly why I'm building my own playground in the backyard for the kids. I'm using 20 foot pipe to build the swingset and slide. I want this thing to be fun for the kids until they get married. None of this three foot tall swingset for $199 at Toys R Us junk for my kids. What's even better is that my wife just insisted that I put in a zip line for the kids too! (they are 1 and 3 now)

Just be sure to build a tall fence around your yard as well, and never let any other children play on it, otherwise you'll be sending some lawyers' kids through college.

Mark

[alfa6]

I want one....good work All it takes is a couple of weekends of work and a bunch of money. I was fortunate in that the BORG had a bunch of composite deck lumber on clearance about this time last year. I was able to get the composite stuff for about what I would have paid for treated pine. All of the 4 x 4s were left over from another project. Regards alfa6 ;>}

[gingerky]

Well, the current idea is to not even have really deep water. Some of the newer pools don't get any deeper than 4-5 feet deep (slides, sprinklers, but no diving boards). I'm speaking from my experience here in Kentucky; I know two of our State Parks have these new pools with no deep water.

When my sons first learned to swim at our city pool, jumping off the board was the ultimate goal. My youngest wanted to try, and so I asked the lifegaurd (who had given him lessons) if he thought it was okay. He promised to watch him, but it was pure torment for me. My little boy jumps off, then proceeds to semi-swim, semi-dogpaddle to the side of the pool, as the lifegaurd and I both watched from the edge (it was only a short distance to the side of the pool, but it took him forever). He made it, and then did it over and over and over again that day. He is now an excellent swimmer, but I don't think a kid could be truly adept at swimming if they didn't have experience in deep water.

[Smokin' Joe]

Remember how there was always some poor kid whose mom wouldn't let them do anything? You could see them as she shouted "no mud!, no dirt clod grenades!, "put that stick down, you'll put somebody's eye out!" "You'll break your neck!", etc. complete with hysterics?

She took over.

[-YYZ-]

I know in Toronoto they went around and tore down a whole bunch of perfectly good playgrounds built with pressure-treated lumber, the kind that replaced the oh so "dangerous" metal playground equipment I enjoyed as a child. They decided that since the pressure treated wood contained arsenic (I think it was arsenic, anyways) that it might present some sort of danger to the children. Nevermind that a child would probably have to spend all day every day licking the playground equipment to get enough arsenic or whatever to do any harm, they tore them down. Also a lot of perfectly good equipment was torn down because it didn't meet the new standards - no foot deep layer of rubbery stuff all around, etc. Of course they didn't have money to replace all these playgrounds, so now the kids that live in those areas are SOL. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

You know it's a really sad commentary on the world today when you can look back on the 70s with fondness and nostalgia, but for everything that was bad about the 70s we weren't nearly as screwed up then as we are now.

[caseinpoint]

We couldn't get to the plane but we could swivel the guns on the anti-aircraft guns and sit on the chairs at each side of the gun and have a great time. We could crawl all over the really big tank but the hatch was welded shut. There was a gun barrel about nine inches in diameter which seemed to me to go about fifteen feet or so which we could slither out on as far as we dared. It was a fun time which I guess helped our patriotism? I'm a little hazy on the details of the various war machinery. By the way, I am a girl and I loved it as much as any of my guy friends.

[MadManDan]

I think you're right... So sad.

[1rudeboy]

That's ok. Most lawyers think their clients suck.

[corlorde]

Playgrounds don't stand a chance against Playstations and gameboys.

We have lost a lot, along the way, haven't we?