What's Happened To Playground Equipment?

[number51]

Every Summer. Finish chores, play, back at noon for lunch, play, back at 6 for dinner, play, back at 9 get clean, get to bed.

Fast pitch against the wall (giant strike zones on school/playground walls), little league coaches said that was bad and would screw up our timing, we did it anyway.

Play 500 with the 16" Clincher. 100 for a fly, 75 for one bounce, 25 for anything else. Great if there weren't enough guys for a game.

Softball game, one field closed pitchers hand out. Enough guys, full game, awesome.

Most of my friends didn't like basketball as much as me so very little of that.

Football was almost always touch, ranging from one hand anywhere to two hand above the waist. Of course blocking was still blocking. There was blood. A neighbors backyard was next to our football field, they had a giant German Shepard named Mike. We found that Mike would go ape shit when we yelled hike (this was before Omaha) we enjoyed pestering Mike right up until he jumped the fence and chased down my friend Dave and mauled him. It was really fucked up, lot's of stitches, we came clean about messing with Mike so they wouldn't put him down.

Fireworks. A lot of times we stuck them in dog shit and ran, that was exciting.

There was a ton of construction of an industrial park not far from us, great place to play. Dirt clump fights against kids from another street, it was all fun until somebody used a rock.

My favorite was at dusk playing kick the can.

My kid did some of the same things, with much more parental supervision. When I was a kid there was no "Mr. stranger danger". Ironically one of our neighbor kids wound up being the last John Wayne Gacy victim, Robert Piest, I was friends with his older sister. The younger brother of the guy that got mauled by the German Shepard was the victims best friend.

Some things have changed for a very good reason.

 

[Urblock]

Every Summer. Finish chores, play, back at noon for lunch, play, back at 6 for dinner, play, back at 9 get clean, get to bed.

Fast pitch against the wall (giant strike zones on school/playground walls), little league coaches said that was bad and would screw up our timing, we did it anyway.

Play 500 with the 16" Clincher. 100 for a fly, 75 for one bounce, 25 for anything else. Great if there weren't enough guys for a game.

Softball game, one field closed pitchers hand out. Enough guys, full game, awesome.

Most of my friends didn't like basketball as much as me so very little of that.

Football was almost always touch, ranging from one hand anywhere to two hand above the waist. Of course blocking was still blocking. There was blood. A neighbors backyard was next to our football field, they had a giant German Shepard named Mike. We found that Mike would go ape shit when we yelled hike (this was before Omaha) we enjoyed pestering Mike right up until he jumped the fence and chased down my friend Dave and mauled him. It was really fucked up, lot's of stitches, we came clean about messing with Mike so they wouldn't put him down.

Fireworks. A lot of times we stuck them in dog shit and ran, that was exciting.

There was a ton of construction of an industrial park not far from us, great place to play. Dirt clump fights against kids from another street, it was all fun until somebody used a rock.

My favorite was at dusk playing kick the can.

My kid did some of the same things, with much more parental supervision. When I was a kid there was no "Mr. stranger danger". Ironically one of our neighbor kids wound up being the last John Wayne Gacy victim, Robert Piest, I was friends with his older sister. The younger brother of the guy that got mauled by the German Shepard was the victims best friend.

Some things have changed for a very good reason.

I don't know what to say.

 

[Tater]

Every Summer. Finish chores, play, back at noon for lunch, play, back at 6 for dinner, play, back at 9 get clean, get to bed.

Fast pitch against the wall (giant strike zones on school/playground walls), little league coaches said that was bad and would screw up our timing, we did it anyway.

Play 500 with the 16" Clincher. 100 for a fly, 75 for one bounce, 25 for anything else. Great if there weren't enough guys for a game.

Softball game, one field closed pitchers hand out. Enough guys, full game, awesome.

Most of my friends didn't like basketball as much as me so very little of that.

Football was almost always touch, ranging from one hand anywhere to two hand above the waist. Of course blocking was still blocking. There was blood. A neighbors backyard was next to our football field, they had a giant German Shepard named Mike. We found that Mike would go ape shit when we yelled hike (this was before Omaha) we enjoyed pestering Mike right up until he jumped the fence and chased down my friend Dave and mauled him. It was really fucked up, lot's of stitches, we came clean about messing with Mike so they wouldn't put him down.

Fireworks. A lot of times we stuck them in dog shit and ran, that was exciting.

There was a ton of construction of an industrial park not far from us, great place to play. Dirt clump fights against kids from another street, it was all fun until somebody used a rock.

My favorite was at dusk playing kick the can.

My kid did some of the same things, with much more parental supervision. When I was a kid there was no "Mr. stranger danger". Ironically one of our neighbor kids wound up being the last John Wayne Gacy victim, Robert Piest, I was friends with his older sister. The younger brother of the guy that got mauled by the German Shepard was the victims best friend.

Some things have changed for a very good reason.

The bold is the exact same stuff we used to do. Sometimes BB gun fights in the woods too.
Sorry about the neighborhood kid that was a victim though. Horrible.

 

[number51]

I don't know what to say.

No shit, I really ended that on a bummer, sorry all. That stuff was never an issue back in the day, I guess there was some 'don't get in the car with strangers', but it was never really stressed.

I was 34 when my kid was born and I was was over protective to the point of obsession. There were always a set of trusted eyes on my kid. Now she's an adult and has made it clear she felt stifled and overprotected. I'll take the hit on that, I did what I though was right, we raised a beautiful, intelligent, educated, charismatic, compassionate, joyful person that in time will raise more of the same.

If my biggest screw up in life was being overprotective, I will gladly take that.

 

[number51]

The bold is the exact same stuff we used to do. Sometimes BB gun fights in the woods too.
Sorry about the neighborhood kid that was a victim though. Horrible.

Yeah the BB gun thing, we were such idiots we were still doing that shit when we were in our 20's. Mike took one in the eye and wound up in the hospital, we went to visit him and bought a stack of *** stroke magazines and one SI. We visited him and left the mags (SI on top) on his hospital tray thing. He said thanks we talked, then left. He said the nurse went to stash the mags and saw the homo collection and he tried to explain, it didn't go well for him. I guess shooting him in the eye just wasn't enough.

It's like story time with uncle number.

 

[Tater]

Yeah the BB gun thing, we were such idiots we were still doing that shit when we were in our 20's. Mike took one in the eye and wound up in the hospital, we went to visit him and bought a stack of *** stroke magazines and one SI. We visited him and left the mags (SI on top) on his hospital tray thing. He said thanks we talked, then left. He said the nurse went to stash the mags and saw the homo collection and he tried to explain, it didn't go well for him. I guess shooting him in the eye just wasn't enough.

It's like story time with uncle number.

Nice!!!
I bet he still talks about that today.

 

[number51]

Nice!!!
I bet he still talks about that today.

He is still trying to exact revenge on all four of us. The double irony is we were on a team in the Lake County Baseball Association and Mike was our second best hitter. Shooting him in the eye probably knocked us out of the playoffs to either Rex or Rob Ryan's team. I don't remember which one, it was a fat zit faced kid. We would have won more games with 'dead eye' playing.

One game we were supposed to play that team was a DQ because we didn't have enough players. Most of the team went to a Sox game, threw a beer at an opposition player. When security showed up the rest of the drunken team stood up for our Special person guy and got arrested, spent the night in jail, so we forfeit the game against Buddy Ryan's kid, could have been both of his kids, who knows. We already paid for the ump, and the field so we took the available players and picked teams, I was picked before the Ryan kid/kids. He/they was/were on the other team and won. ****'em

 

[LordKOTL]

When we still lived in town there was hell to pay when a mom caught us jumping off the garage roof with our Superman capes into a willow tree. Very cool. Just kind of a slow crash.

I did the same, but out of the only freaking tree in the yard I could climb, and I used a trash bag as a parachute instead.
And there was hell to pay for (a) climbing the tree--of which my step-mom had more concern for the tree being damaged, (b) ruining a trash bag, (c) damaging the bushes underneath, and (d) scraping up the ugly-ass clothes she bought for me.

Was worth it, though.

 

[botfly10]

You can't blame anyone but the people doing the suing.