When kids were kids

 When I was a kid, the best times were had at the parks. Not theme parks, just city or county parks where a family could have a picnic and sometimes aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends all met to enjoy a day of hot dogs and burgers on the grill. One park in particular was well known for a slide that was the highest for miles around. There were twenty-five steps to reach the top, barely enough room to sit down, and letting go as you sped down the steel monster at record speeds, all the while praying you would have a soft landing, unscathed. There were two humps on the slide to slow you down a little, and for kids who didn't weigh much, it wasn't uncommon to get some air as they sped down, screaming with joy, then raced around to the stairs for another go.

Back then, parents let kids be kids, and although it was well known that every mom gasped a little looking at their kid forty feet in the air with nothing to protect them but a handrail to hang on to. Somehow, one kid, somewhere in time, realized that if you rubbed the steel down with waxed paper, you'd increase your speed, so naturally we had to try that, and it really did work. If there was a time when your picnic was in the heat of summer, you dare not wear just shorts to go down the slide, as steel gets very hot and your butt would surely be burned. I can still see a kid with his pants down as his mom tended to his burned rear end.
What was it back in those days when parents allowed their kids to play on rides like the slides and go around on a wooden circular platform that, when pushed faster and faster around in a circle, gravity got you. It was all you could do to stay on until you couldn't and were tossed off, crashing to the ground like a rag doll. And who was the genius who invented the sea-saw on a large scale? The trick was to have two kids close in weight, so when one pushed off the ground, the other kid would be twenty feet in the air, stuck there until the other kid went through the same motions, until one kid decided he'd had enough and got off his seat, causing the other to crash hard on the ground. Oh, the good times.
And what about the spring animals? Farm animals were the choice of the person who devised those whiplashed amusements. The object was to rock back and forth and side to side as the heavy-duty springs whipped you around close to the sky one minute and nose-diving to earth the next. The only saving grace was that little kids couldn't bend those springs as the older kids could, so all they got was a gentle ride on their favorite farm animal.
Today, a place like that would never be allowed. Too dangerous, especially since no protective gear was worn, and if you got hurt, Dad would decide if it was bad enough to require stitches. I think today is all about safety, and that's okay, but where did the sense of adventure go?  Playgrounds are all plastic with mounds of mulch to land on. Fiberglass slides and monkey bars that let your feet touch ground. I suppose I'm just old-fashioned, and I proved that a few weeks ago when I drove to the park I went to as a kid. The steel slide was still there, although it didn't look so intimidating as I climbed the 25 stairs, sat down, and let go of the rails as I raced down the steel monster, laughing all the way until my old rear end hit the ground, leaving me to wonder if I was still in one piece and had no broken bones. I thought for a minute I saw Mom running towards me with her first-aid kit, but it was just Mom bringing her kid a happy meal.

Mike  2026                                                                    

                                                

 
MIKE  2026