As with so many things, the true and often unseen value of what once was isn’t realized until later, so much later that it’s unlikely to ever return.
For evidence, you need not look any farther than a school playground whose main attraction is a plastic structure to be climbed into and upward where there await windows from which the young can look from and wave to those a scant eight feet below.
Yes, Adrian and Beth, that’s about all there is unless you climb down, then do it all over again. You met the challenge, and now it’s gone, at least for now. All that’s left is any enjoyment you might feel from simply doing it over again just like the last time. But hurry because recess will soon be over.
Now for the flashback.
The recess bell rings and the big question is who will be first to run out the door and across the grass to go down the slide, what first two will grab the teeter-totter, how many will get the coveted spots on the self-propelled merry-go-round, and the first rungs on the maypole or the first of the four big swings.
Being first, however, is only the beginning. What follows is true adventure, a test of sorts as to who can swing farthest upward when the chains go slack, then stiffen again. Get to the maypole and run the fastest before lifting two legs and gliding toward the next push upward to repeat the process. Scramble up the ladder and do a fast slide and do a complete recovery at the bottom. Run to the merry-go-round and try to match the already fast speed before grabbing a handle and jumping aboard.
The kids yell with excitement as they run, twist, turn, squeeze, and hang on tight, feel the rush of air, the exhilaration as they express the quick motions of kinetic energy, of overcoming gravity, of making the body match what the eye imagines, of discovering the magic emerging from the teamwork of one pulling with another pushing.
What they risk, a scraped knee or a scratched arm, is an easy fix with a Band-Aid, maybe two. A whimper is overcome with renewed willpower, a tearful cry is met with a promise they’ll do better the next time.
The playground is coveted not merely because it offers temporary relief from the classroom, but also because it’s a place to exercise and exhibit the freedom that all youth lust after, a place to coordinate mind and body, a testing ground for converting “I wonder if I can” to “I just did,” for muttering “I shouldn’t have done that” to “I’ll know better next time.”
Even in miniature and for brief moments, those challenges, rewards, and joys not only stuck tight, they had staying power. If nothing else, they served as a base for what was to come as adults in households, factories, and offices, places that called for the discipline of endurance, of coordinating brain and body, of not only identifying the possible and workable, but also their opposites.
Indeed, it was a valuable part of the total educational process, a companion to learning the beginning and simple, yet necessary and later to become extremely vital fundamentals of language, math, geography, civics, and physics that would be put into play not just for a day, but for everyday, everywhere, and for everyone until the end of life itself.
All of this might seem to exaggerate, overstate, distort or maybe appear to be all wrong. A closer look, however, reveals the contrary. Look even closer and you will discover that fear is the real reason the playgrounds of yesterday with all their positive attributes aren’t those of today. Fear that in all that swinging, sliding, grabbing, running, and riding, somebody might get hurt.
Did we really believe that? How could we when we know that’s where we first learned much about how not to get hurt or if we were, how not to get hurt again. It prepared us for the times we would get hurt because sooner or later we did, if only a fall, or a tumble off a bicycle, or while stepping out of a car, or slipping on a hallway carpet. Living a life is like that, a matter of preventing hurt and conquering it when it does.
All of that was on top of the many achievements felt, imagined, and realized—of being first, of successfully grabbing, riding, and landing, of learning how as well as learning from.
On all counts, the now extinct and logical playground of yesterday was wonderfully instructive, not to mention it being the best of fun.
Long may it live in the minds of those who were so blessed by its existence.
