Born before 1979?

[edisonoside]

Whatever happened to the See-Saw??? Are they banned? Ever notice in today's fenced in playgrounds Parents hovering over their children for fear of injury or even death. I couldn't even get my parents to push my swing.

[KYYX4ever]

Playgrounds have totally changed !
All around the nation, they have gone around and revamped/ torn down old playgrounds. No more wood (splinters), chains (munched fingers), dangerous dangly parts (kids could fall), metal slides (OW! in the hot sun, or kids could hit their head on them), teeter-totters (or seesaws to you--danger on a stick !), merry-go-rounds (injury waiting to happen), and more. Generally speaking, of course--but when was the last time you saw an "old school" playground ?
Now playgrounds around here are all sanitized, pre-fab, plastic jungley-type things....and get this: with runner sand underneath !

Remember those crazy metal or wood merry-go-rounds? You'd load up a bunch of kids on them, get someone to hang on to a metal handle and run crazily in circles, get that merry-go-round flying faster than light, then the puking would inevitably ensue. Hours of sickening, hurling fun !!!

[phillyidol]

I remember back in the bad old days, our parents never watched us. We would go out for the entire day without checking in. Well, I also remember the perverts that hung out at the park that chased us a number of times, I remember almost being kidnapped, I remember getting mugged.....yep good times. I wish my parents watched over me the way I do for my kids. They did not, I lived, but I am a mess for it. Oh well, enough about that....DEVOOOOOO!

[hutter]

[quote][i]Originally posted by phillyidol[/i]
<br>I remember when $10 bucks would get you 5 whores and a bucket of eels.
[/quote]
Me too! Those were the days.

[phillyidol]

LOL! Well, we could still go to Utah!

[oneno]

We used to get the stupid kids to lay at the ending of our makeship ramps and jump our bicycles over them. My record was six...almost seven!

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[darwinsky]

Funny how, while coming from across the globe from you guys, we could still relate so much with the topic.

I do wish my 4-year old daughter could enjoy the same street games I did. True that most of these we crude and unsafe but I learned a lot from the cuts and bruises sustained from sliding along the roadway when playing touchball, the pain, fear and embarassment I felt when the school janitor had to cut the grillework of the slide platform when my foot got caught between them, the feeling of rebellion in sneaking out of the house when grounded...

Okay... so maybe I don't really want her to go through all that but I don't want her to grow up interacting with computers and barbie dolls all day when she could be out there playing with boys and girls her age, getting a little dirty/ muddy.

But to let her go and play out there means additional work for mom and dad who have to check if she's ok what with all the sex offenders, reckless drivers and bullies running around. And mom and dad will find it hard to squeeze that in their hectic schedules.

Sigh... What I really wish for is to be a child again. Carefree and undmindful of all things meant for adults. And to be watching for the first time the music videos for Naked Eyes' Always Something There, Peter Wolf's Dancing in the Dark, J. Geills Band's Freezeframe, so on and so forth.


dar