I was about to add a wu that I too had a
wooden playground that is still up, that I spent many a day hanging out on. That years later, my
tennis team was practicing on the new
courts built in front of my old
elementary school playground, and despite my coach's stern "No playing on the playground," a few of my friends and I ditched our racquets and initiated a game of
tag that would have made our eight year old
personas howl.
However.
As I read this node, I started thinking about my old playground. About what it was made of... The
swings were metal and what seemed like black rubber. The
beams and
supports and the
wobbly bridge were all definitely wooden, as were the
planks and
walkways. However, the
crawl tube,
monkey bars, and
slides were all metal or plastic. The colorful, "
ouchless" kind that were as all have said, anything but.
"Was my playground wooden?" I asked myself as I read this node.
Of course it was, I decided. I have some
fond memories of that playground (despite my near complete
isolation during the elementary school years, scorned as a
dork, a
genius, a
weirdo, the list goes on...) and from what people have been saying, its impossible to enjoy the
new age style playground.
But then the truth came out. I reread this node, realizing that a certain write up had been written by my
real life older brother,
mmoin. He went to the same schools as I did, but
his wooden playground had been torn down and replaced with a plastic one when he was 7. When I was 3.
I don't even remember a different playground.
Maybe we're all hitting
premature "
Kids curse too much these days." The truth is, I loved the playground. The
biggest playground I ever played on was the all plastic
Discovery Zone (I tried going back a few years ago, and to my shock and despair, I was
too big to go inside), and that was a
paradise to me.
Its not the wood, its not the
days of yore when parents didn't worry nearly as much. Its what
you had, and that's why it means so much to you. The reason why the kids I see now still obsess over recess and their
multi colored,
plastic mold playground...
The one that doesn't even have a tire swing.