Читать книгу The Columns (Volume One) - Tracy Lorenz - Страница 13

By Tracy K. Lorenz

My son Q (age 4) is what I’d call a playground connoisseur, he appreciates and ranks them like fine wines. He’s pretty much used up every playground in Grand Haven so last week I took him to Lincoln Park School in Norton Shores, the playground responsible for most of the scars I carry around today.

When we got there I wasn’t surprised to see the archaic instruments of gravity defiance I knew as a child were gone, replaced by the generic, brightly colored but exceedingly safe, “play stations” that have taken over today’s playgrounds and turned them into the thrill equivalent of string cheese.

One piece of equipment I wasn’t surprised to see gone was the Maypole. The Maypole was a twenty foot tall steel pipe with a swivel on top. Four chains hung down from the swivel and provided the soundtrack for our neighborhood because they clanged like a fire engine when met with the slightest breeze. On the bottom of each chain was a hand grip. The idea was to grab a grip, run a round in a circle, and let centrifugal force carry you momentarily up and away.

As we grew older we discovered an even better way to rip out your shoulder sockets. You needed four kids, one for each chain, while three of the kids stood there, kid four would walk around them so that his chain overlapped the others. That way when everyone took off running the kid who overlapped would actually fly OVER the other three kids which was good in theory but never ended well. Kid four was pulling about ten G’s and would invariably lose his grip and be sent flying into Lincoln Park’s cash crop of sandburs. If you see an adult walking around and his arms appear disproportionately long there’s a pretty good chance he grew up somewhere near Castle Avenue.

Lincoln Park also had the worlds most dangerous basketball court because it was always covered with a thin layer of beach sand. Going in for a lay-up was like running down polished wood stairs in a new pair of socks.

But there was one area of excitement that the powers-that-be forgot to address. The school’s roof.

Okay, it wasn’t officially part of the playground but my friends and I spent a lot of time up there. We’d climb onto a small brick wall, shinny up a pole that held up a roof overhang, and we were home free. The roof wasn’t so much a place to play as it was a giant Easter Egg hunt. During recess all kinds of Frisbees, super balls, kick balls, and baseballs would end up on the roof (along with the occasional shoe) and it was all finders-keepers after that. We’d climb up, collect the loot, toss it to the ground, climb down, and walk home like we just came from a Dick’s Sporting Goods shopping spree. The reason we needed to make these weekly excursions was because we had a woman on our block named Mrs. Brock. If we were playing in the street and a ball went into Mrs. Brock’s yard she would run out like a Wimbledon net girl, pick up the ball, and take it into her house like her lawn was all that nice anyway. We never knew what she did with all the balls she acquired but I suspect she sold them back to Lincoln Park so the cycle could begin anew.

So as Q played I looked at that roof and remembered the feeling of being up there, the feeling of having all your senses heightened at once. Occasionally a janitor would come up and we’d have to scramble (as opposed to St. Francis School where if the nuns heard you they’d position themselves at the exit points and wait you out) but we never really got in trouble. The roof was a bonding point for those brave enough to make the climb. The rewards were worth the effort and if we got caught? Usually the janitor would just let us…slide.