NEWS: No Running on the Playground, Ya Crazy Kids

Well, you've got all the kids carrying guns to school, right? So someone's still tough.

I miss the merry-go-rounds. I miss the way you got a friend to spin it fast, and then you held on tight and let your legs spill out beneath you and trail and you felt like you were flying.

The only thing better was when you pumped your legs on the swings with all your might until you were practically perpendicular to the railing that held the chains on, and then you pushed yourself off and jumped, and sailed through the air and it felt beautiful like you were an airplane or an eagle, and sometimes you went too far and completely missed the grassy patch and ate gravel on the other side, and then you cried all the way home with rocks sticking out of your knees, and your mom dusted you off and put some peroxide and a Hello Kitty band-aid on you and no one sued the playground and no one put rubber grounds in because sometimes you get gravel in your knees but you suck it up and get stronger 'cause that's just life.

Fuck all of this. Kids aren't going to know that playground scars make you braver anymore.

[Edited on May 13, 2006 by _DictionaryGirl_]

No, I do agree with the merry-go-rounds. That shit was genuinely dangerous. I went on one of those when I was 19 and I decided it was dangerous.

Well of course they were dangerous, but they were also the best thing in the world when you're eight years old.

When I was a kid, we played with toy guns and endlessly ran around "shooting" each other. We did not bring real guns to school.

i completely agree, playground scars were status.

I remember the climbing frame in my old school got taken down just after I started there...apparently some of the older kids had taken to having "monkey fights" where theyd hang from the frame by their arms and try to kick each other until one of them fell off.

After that we were left with a field and some concrete playareas....not a single playground-esque thing remained

Pussies.

I'm willing to bet that the same people who ban children from running and playing are the same ones who complain about them turning into lazy fatasses.

Parents today suck fucking balls.

Ah, yes, the nostalgia for the "good ol' days". The sure sign that you're all getting old.

I remember when kids were tougher, music was better, and dicks were bigger.

My playground has not changed at all in the fifteen years I've lived here.

So that proves you're all wrong.

I broke my nose in a playground accident in the fifth grade. The best part was when I went to the teacher who was acting as playground monitor, and told her I needed to see the school nurse, she passed out from the sight of the blood.

Since this was the least popular teacher in the school, from then on I was the man! Which is a really good thing when you're the smallest kid in class.

i've noticed this at the playgrounds near my house, at the elementary school i went to. the big metal slide that burned the back of your legs in summer has been replaced by a much smaller plastic one. the giant metal firetruck frame thinger has been replaced by a similar yet wimpier plastic thinger. that's just on the playground i see driving home; i should visit the other three on the school grounds. another school in my town has had the whole playground overhauled. as someone who still enjoys going to playgrounds when i have the time, i am outraged.

i was a huge wuss as a kid and didn't even use the playground equipment most of the time, but it was nice to know that if the nice boy in my class and i wanted to swing sideways and bash into each other for half an hour, we could. i doubt that would be acceptable now.

Thanks. I do try.

Seriously, though, if you watch your kids when they're playing nothing TRULY bad will happen to them. I feel bad for all the kids that don't climb all the way to the top of a tall slide and then go down it. Not only is it fun, but it gives them the feeling that they are capable of amazing feats.

Yeah I meant what she said. I just said it in a lazier more general type way.