Today we celebrated our son’s 7th birthday with his buddies at a slot car race track.
Don’t see them around much anymore. Everyone had a really nice time.
I like these threads.
See-saws (teeter-totters to you 'Merkins) always feature highly. There is one in a little out-of-the-way playground near my house. I hope the officials from the Department of Fun Spoiling have forgotten it.
May poles…you know the kind where the kind the kids hang from them and use picnic tables to use as a jumping point off it.
Good times. The Best Times.
Merry go rounds on the playground.
Always good for spinning brains.
Pogo sticks. Never see 'em.
My nephew just played on a see-saw for the first time ever a week or so ago. He’s seven. How sad is that? They had a merry-go-round at this playground, too. I’m not sure if he’d ever been on one of those or not, but there aren’t any in town.
Bring back the see-saws, damn it!
Milk in glass bottles… on doorsteps.
Jump ropes. Do elementary school kids still have to jump rope in their gym classes?
No. There is instead an interactive computer game called Jumping Jehosephat where you control the jumper with your mouse pointer, and the rope goes faster and faster. In successive levels, the jumper has to jump while avoiding nuclear porcupines, 1920’s style death rays, and nekkid hookers who morph into rappin gangsta types.
Very educational.
You can’t have children engaging in anything physical, because they might get hurt and the school would be sued, or one might be better at a thing than another, causing bruising of self esteem, and other forms of negativity. Too dangerous.
I don’t know why see-saws had to go. Sure, the ones I remember were essentially nothing more than a long plank with two U brackets bolted to the underside, and mounted on a tube welded to four legs. Now admittedly, this whole set-up was on a concrete base, and cracked heads were a part of childhood, but I’m sure modern playgrounds could have a proper see-saw that would satisfy the lawyers.
Mount the thing in that rubberised matting that playgrounds have now, and set up a simple retarding mechanism that slows the see-saw in its last several inches of travel - this wouldn’t spoil the kids’ fun as mostly it wouldn’t kick in with normal use. It was that sudden hit on the concrete with exuberant use that made the lower kid get a sore arse, and the higher kid fly off into space with a concrete touchdown. This could easily be solved mechanically.
Let’s face it - those poor replacements - awful little plastic animals on springs - are dead boring, and are shunned by most children.
BRING BACK SEE-SAWS DANGNAMBIT!!
(On the other hand, some of the modern playground equipment is pretty cool)
Jungle Gyms - those contraptions made from steel pipe that you could climb on and with a bit of imagination became sailing ships, airplanes, castles, etc.
I gave myself a concussion in 1st grade using a jump rope during gym class. tried to jump over the rope, tripped, did a face-plant on the concrete floor…
I think I missed school for about a week.
All’s well that ends well, see? Why aren’t kids nowadays given a chance to do a face-plant on the floor and miss school for about a week?
Concrete makes a pretty good retarding mechanism. 
In addition to your ideas which were good and might not ruin the concept, I’m afraid you would need seat belts to prevent falling off and guard rails to prevent other children from getting hit as they wandered by.
And what’s this nonsense?
Not in the least bit true.
We called them teeter totters here, perhaps it’s a regional thing?
Other stuff I don’t see often anymore…
Full Glass Phone Booths
Ciggarette Machines
Wall Mounted Pencil Sharpeners–the crank kind
Home Encyclopedias
Cigerrette Machines are alive and well all over Germany.
Just thought you should know.
Oh, so it’s YOUR fault.
We only ever called them see-saws too. I grew up in the NYC area, as did both my parents. Everyone in both families called them see-saws.
There is a playground merry-go-round near my brother’s house in upstate NY. I realized I hadn’t seen one in years. It does have a fairly high danger potential but I was struck by how a few minor changes in design could make it quite a bit safer.
The biggest problem with this particular one was that it was a big hunk of steel weighing most likely a couple of hundred pounds, that could spin with several kids on it at a high rate of speed, and was six or eight sided rather than being round, so it essentially had corners sticking out at just the right height to hit a small child in the head. Also it was pretty far off the ground, high enough that a kid could conceivably get trapped under it.
Haven’t seen a dirt road in a while. When I was a kid, getting behind another car on a dirt road in a dry summer led to oxygen deprivation highs and an additional layer of dust skin.
Regarding see-saws: we just had a new park built in Tallahassee that actually brought back some of the old favorites. You can see it here. I was very pleased to see that it actually has see-saws! It also has something called a “spacenet” where kids can climb about fifteen feet in the air, promptly get a case of height fright, and make their parents climb up after them to get them down (just mine? OK).
I guess that covering the whole bottom in rubber (all that blue stuff is recycled tires) allowed them to include a few of the old “dangerous” favorites without too much risk. My daughter loves the see-saws the best, just like I did when I was a kid.