When I was little, our after-school care had this thing called the doughnut. It was actually a covered block o’ foam shaped like an octagonal prism with a hole in the middle, with straps for you to hold onto/stick your feet into. It was rolled to the top of a hill, you got in and the teacher shoved you down whereupon you would roll until you lost momentum (or hit a tree) and fell out.
When my mum was little, she lived near some complex containing military training equipment. One of these consisted of two platforms about two metres high and ten metres apart, with a wooden plank maybe a foot wide connecting the two. Oh, and attached to one of the platforms was a massive slide. She and her friends used to sneak in and swallow their fear for a chance to play on the mother of all playground slides. Or, in her own words, it’s a miracle nobody died.
Gotta mention Jarts, the Lawn Darts. I played these back in the 1960s and 1970s. The Wiki article says they were banned in 1988, but I was sure it was much earlier than that. I hadn’t seen Jarts in ten years by 1988:
I remember when playground equipment was built out of steel pipes that got blistering hot in the summer sun. But you didn’t notice so much because of the heat coming off of the asphalt (or fine, blue-gray gravel) that it was built on.
As I became a larger child, the wooden playground gear started taking over and there was mulch and woodchips. But we still managed to hurt each other with the tire hanging horizontally from three chains. We of course, didn’t know that our rights were being infringed by this gear. We just ran to mom and cried for a while.
I wish we had that donut thing the OP mentions. The only time I got to do that was in an inner tube into the Warrior River on visits to Alabama relatives. My uncles did it too, only not on purpose. One can earn a Darwin Award at play just as easily as at work.
I once had a boss who said that she and her brothers used to jump around on the furniture and sword fight like Errol Flynn using real sharp butcher knives.
And to think the Snooppie Doggs, Iced Teas, and other rap stars are a dangerous influence with their gangs and guns.
I was at a flea market last year and saw an original set of Jarts for sale for…$65. My parents used to have a set, but mom ditched them in the garbage pretty quickly once we were old enough to really heave them. $65 seemed a bit high, but I really want a set of Jarts. Can’t even find them on Ebay. Guess I’ll just have to keep garage sale hunting.
I remember these too. They were safe, well, as safe as things that tower 20 feet in the air can be. And I swear I remember balance beams towering between two wooden towers 15 feet in the air but I may be mistaken.
Anyway, these wooden playgrounds have been phased out too due to the pressure-treated lumber they use (containing arsenic!)
I’ve got 2 sets of Jarts in my garage. $100 each, huh?
For anyone interested in spending that kinda coin, be forewarned that the plastic used in the fins tends to deteriorate over time. I’ve got a couple of cracked/missing fins among my Jarts.
So - what is the worst Jart injury you witnessed? My buddy caught one right in the top of his skull. Maybe if we hadn’t been so drunk we wouldn’t have laughed so much!
AHunter, one thing that site doesn’t mention is the way Klackers could practically explode if a fracture developed. I saw it happen once – Klacker shrapnel everywhere. That, I think, is what really killed these things – you could be using them safely and responsibly and still get yourself hurt.
Anyone else remember the metal and wood spin-around playground equipment? The idea was to run around pushing the merry-go-round until it was going fast enough and then leap onto the seats for the ride. Continue until somebody vomits. Or gets run over while failing to make the transition to the seat. Or knocks out a tooth on the metal bars.
Diving boards at the pool! I used to love going to the public pool because they had the regular boards mounted on the edge of the deep end but they also had a 20 foot high dive. They took all the boards out after a couple kids cracked their heads on the boards while trying fancy dives and one kid fractured his neck. Wimps.
Maybe a haiku would work: