Feature Article   The Games of our Youth: The Playground by Melissa Minners                Do you remember when going to the playground was an amazing adventure?  It may still be an adventure for some, but I’m of the opinion that today’s children have no idea what fun is all about.  Poor little guys!  In the old days, going to the playground had a profound impact on your life.  It was here that we learned basic skills that made us what we are today.             I’m not going to lie – I lived in a nice neighborhood, so I definitely had a decent sized playground nearby.  Litter in the park meant actual garbage, not drug paraphernalia.  But there was a lot of fun to be had at the playground in that time period.  First off, we had something that you can’t find anymore at any of the parks you might visit now – we had a sandbox!  That’s right, a real, honest to goodness sandbox where you played with your shovels and pails, searching for buried treasure.  And let me tell you, sometimes that sandbox was a virtual treasure trove of goodies – glass fragments from bottles, bottle caps, fake jewelry, coins – you name it, you could find it in the sandbox.  This was where you learned to play nice with others.  More often than not, you weren’t by yourself in that box and quite often, you ended up sharing your equipment with the neighborhood kids.  Thus, you learned how to share and cooperate.  You also learned conflict resolution – this is what you used when the inevitable sand-thrower entered the box to avoid getting sand thrown in your face.             We had two wooden seesaws.  You remember those things, right?  How much fun was it to jump off the see-saw at just the right moment, causing your friend to land with a loud bump on his/her bottom.  Yeah, you’d get a splinter or two every once in a while, but those seesaws taught you how to be tough and take a hit.  They also taught you balance if you were daring enough to walk from one end to the other.             How many of you remember when climbing up to the top of the slide meant holding on to metal rails and walking up metal steps.  Bumping your shins on the metal steps was an inevitable part of the game if you were in a rush to get to the top, but a little bruise never hurt anyone and nobody I know of ever broke a leg on a metal step.  Sure, they were slippery when wet, but how often did you go to the park when it was raining?  The slides were metal, which meant that they were fairly hot in the summertime and not for the faint of heart.  We loved them!  We even walked / ran straight up the slippery slope to the top and flopped down for a ride back down to the bottom.  I remember falling off the top step to the thin rubber mat below when I was a kid.  Yeah, it hurt, but after a few minutes I was right back up and ready to have at it again.             Then, there were the swings – two sizes depending on how old you were.  Metal basket-like contraptions for the small kids and the standard metal swing for the older kids.  Remember hanging off those babies?  Remember laying across the seat and pretending you were flying?  How about seeing how high you could go and then jumping off?!  What a rush!             We used to chase each other through the playground obstacle course which consisted of bench-height concrete slabs.  We would wait until the parents had cleared that area and run through the obstacle course, running on top of the slabs, around the slabs, and if you were really good at this, jumping over the slabs.  Yeah, skinned knees happened, but nobody got killed and we became incredibly agile in our youth.             Of course, there were basketball hoops and tennis courts and baseball fields where you could definitely get some exercise, but if you were too small for those sports yet, the playground was the best for burning off some steam, learning life skills, and having great fun.             I was discussing this with some co-workers the other day and they agreed with me – in this day and age, parents are constantly struggling to create a world in which their children are safe…completely safe.  This means that parents are obsessed with making sure that junior doesn’t skin a knee playing freeze tag, feel left out when choosing sides in stick ball, get a splinter on a wooden bench, etc.  Nowadays, slide steps are made of rubbery material.  The mats beneath the slides might as well be bed mattresses for how thick they are.  Swings seats and baskets are also made of rubbery material and often, the swing chains are covered with a plastic coating to prevent callouses.  No more wood for the seesaw – they’re made of rubbery material with a sort of cushion on the bottom to absorb ground hits.             When I was a child, playgrounds taught us valuable lessons in life such as the fact that sometimes you can get a bruise when doing something daring, but as long as you get back up and keep trying, the end result is worth the injury.  It taught us to take a chance…to take risks.  We learned how to play well with others which, as we got older, translated into working well with others.  Bumps and bruises made us tough so we could eventually deal with life’s challenges.  Let’s face it, life’s a bumpy road and you are bound to fall and skin a knee before you reach a goal.  Overprotecting your kids…insulating them from every possible bump and bruise…teaches them nothing and can, in fact, stunt their growth.             Bring back the old playgrounds – the outdoor educational facilities that were full of life’s lessons, wrapped in a whole lot of fun! 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