Play Park Now and Then

When I was growing up, we had a neighborhood play park. It wasn’t all that different from the play parks of today. It had swings. It had slides. And it was full of kids, even on the hottest of hot days. Our Flamingo Street Park was the same as the parks of today…yet it was completely different. Confused? No worries. Soon everything will be as clear as mud. 

We had swings, just like kids do today. But when we swung forward really high, the metal back posts of the swing set came up out of the ground. Then, when we swung back the other way, the front posts came up. It was kind of like a giant teeter-totter. Dangerous? Yes, but we loved it.

The swing set never fell over, at least not that I remember. But making those legs come out of the ground? Well, that was very exciting. In fact, it was sort of a reward for swinging really high.

The biggest difference was the sliding board.

Today’s slides are made of space-age plastic, and many playgrounds even have shade coverings over them. They don’t get nearly as hot during the summer. That was not our experience during those seven years while growing up on that old familiar street not so far away called Flamingo.

Our sliding boards were made out of shiny aluminum. And when shiny aluminum sits out in the Georgia sun all day, it gets hot. 

I mean REALLY HOT.

It only took one trip down that sliding board with any exposed skin to learn the important childhood lesson number ten: Don’t slide down a sheet of aluminum that has been roasting in the Georgia sun all day. Fortunately, us kids who lived on Flamingo, we had a solution.

Each of us carried a bucket.

Still confused? Just keep reading. Not only is this a logical solution, but it happened as written.

Now, I probably should mention that our neighborhood park sat right next to the bank of Cripple Creek, the creek that meandered behind all the houses on the right going down Flamingo. We would take our buckets down to the creek, scoop them full of that freezing cold creek water, haul them back to the playground, climb the ladder to the top of the sliding board, and pour the water all the way down.

Problem solved.

The blazing-hot aluminum cooled off enough for us to slide. There were, however, two side effects. Not a downside, just a couple of side effects. 

Side effect number one: All that water had to go somewhere.

The creek water collected at the bottom of the sliding board, and after four or five trips down by us kids, what started as a little wet spot became a really big mud puddle.

That only made things better.

Side effect number two: Water on an aluminum sliding board makes a kid go FAST.

We’d shoot down the water-slicked slide and land bottom first in the mud. Sometimes we go two at a time. Sometimes we’d go down headfirst, landing belly first in the mud. The bravest of us stood and “surfed” down the super slick metal. And some of us did really silly stuff. But the story of how one of us broke his arm trying to surf while going down our water slide is a story for another time.

Before long, our shoes were muddy. 

Our clothes were muddy. 

Our arms and legs were muddy.

And by the end of the day, every one of us knew one thing for certain. We could not go home completely muddified.                                                                                                                

Fortunately, Cripple Creek had already solved one problem for us, so we figured it could solve another. There was a bend in the creek that we called the Arctic Plunge. At that bend, the water got really deep. It was so cold and so blue that it looked almost unreal. And after you jumped in, blue was pretty much the color of your skin by the time you could climb out.

We knew Mom would be less mad at us for being all wet than being all muddy, so before we went home, we all jumped into the Arctic Plunge and washed off the mud. Older Brother Richard jumped in first, followed by Big Brother James, Twin Brother Mark, Neighbor Thomas, Bubba Hanks, Goofy Steve, Ski, and the kid we all called Booger.

And, of course, there was the new kid.

He didn’t have a nickname yet, so naturally we called him the Kid with No Nickname. (He was the surfing kid that broke his arm, by the way.)

We would all jump into that freezing water, wash away the evidence of our afternoon at the playground, climb back out, and head home. I’m sure our mothers thought we had spent the afternoon innocently playing at the neighborhood park.

And technically, we had.

We just never mentioned that our playground equipment included a bucket, a creek, a blazing-hot aluminum sliding board, a mud puddle and a quick dip in the Arctic Plunge.

In our downtown there is a newly renovated playpark. It has a climbing rock wall, a giant spider web, and large stepping stools that look like stumps. It also has three sliding boards made of space-age plastic. All the equipment is covered with giant shade cloths, and the ground is specially designed soft mulch. 

Gone are the aluminum sliding boards.

Gone are the mud puddles at the bottom of the slides.

But what isn’t gone is the creek. 

There’s a creek right next to our downtown play park, and it’s always full of freezing cold water. I think I should bring a couple buckets and leave them down by the creek just in case some kid has the great idea of turning their plastic sliding board into a water park slide.

If they do, then perhaps our new play park isn’t that different from the ones we grew up with after all.