Playground

- This used to be my....

There was a playground near me when I was growing up. We called it "The Park." I can still remember all the rides there. There was a big concrete duck and black horse, each mounted on a giant spring that was dug well into the ground. We'd rock back and forth on those. One day a friend just rocked "forth" and the whole thing came out of the ground. I had not yet fully developed empathy at that point and wondered why the parents were so freaked out.

There was a jungle gym shaped like a train. Just the outline of one. The only solid part was the bench part to sit on.

There was one of those flat spinny things. We called it the merry go round. Kids would hold onto its bars and run around it, trying to get it spinning really fast, then jump on at the last minute for the ultra fast dizzying ride, while trying to fight the centrifugal force that threatened to shoot them all off the edges

A new slide was put in at one point, with red and white striped climbing poles and a tunnel at the top of the slide. A short tunnel, but back then that made it way cool.

Then there were the swings. Horse swings. Plastic horses, in different colors, attached at the front and back to the swing set. You'd sit on the horse's back, grab the handle bars, put your feet on the foot bars, and swing. I rode the blue one a lot and used to imagine we were flying together. It made its way into some of my dreams.

Wow... floods of memories from this place... not sure how much more to write. My 60 seconds is up anyway ;)

I remember a lot from there. Times with my dog. A friend who lived at the edge of the park and considered it her back yard. Birthday parties, a basketball hoop at the far end. Older friends telling me they set the park on fire while smoking and the police came...

I still dream about the park at times. I often have to go through it or by it to get somewhere. In a dream, it's usually connected with a very large hill that was near it in real life.