argh! beat me to it!!!
1 Like
Next time light a fire under your ass.
2 Likes
Eh, children who are looking for a more physically challenging playground just climb on the outside of the safe playground equipment. I have never not seen this happen.
5 Likes
You can! There’s one near Fort Worth, TX.
1 Like
Growing up in a very rural setting as I did, I didn’t even have the dangerous playground pictured on which to play. My usual climbing equipment, when it wasn’t trees or a barn, was whatever was in my dad’s junkyard at the time. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures from that era, but there was usually a lot of car bodies, logging equipment (including one old skidder which was missing all four tires that made an amazing space fighter, as I recall), and other miscellaneous highly dangerous things on which to play. To add to the fun, wasps, and both venomous spiders and snakes are a standard feature of NC, so you never could tell what else might be living in that old car until you encountered it at close range.
Why if I had a kid today … I’d keep the way the hell away from those things. Dear Gods, I’m still not sure how I survived to adulthood, let along never got seriously injured. What the hell was wrong with my parents, anyway?
3 Likes
Ah, the Twirl ‘n’ Hurl.
2 Likes
My father just told me “if you could get up there on your own, you can get down again on your own.”
Turns out he was right.
1 Like
And, by the looks of it, inspired by Sol LeWitt.
I was just thinking about that this summer. The first swing set I played on a lot had wooden slats, and I always hated the plastic ones that would squish you in like a vice. Might as well have put seat belts on the damn things. But I imagine getting hit by a plastic one when you’re not looking hurts a lot less.
2 Likes
yeah, the sling ones definitely caused fewer and less serious injuries if they hit you in the face. Empirically, they were a big improvement.
2 Likes
Actually childhood deaths and injuries are way down, partly as a result of the nerfing of playgrounds, and well as children not being allowed any unsupervised freedom.
That’s the good, easily measurable news. Many fewer (proportionally) grieving parents.
The bad news? Well that’s a whole lot more subtle, but we’ll see the results over the next 90 years or so.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
