NewportBarGuy: djkutch: Tangential conversation, but I am confident you found Hustler caches during your adventures.

Freaky, dude. Hustler and Playboy, both!


Not freaky at all. For all the hahaha pedobear up page, the truth is that porn was a quest for our generation. You had access like your found cache treasure, back of Dad's closet, or you paid a homeless guy to buy a 40 for himself for a spank mag at the gas station. Now a days, kids only have to google albino triplet midgets with a Clydesdale and there it is. We have become soft and failing as a nation because porn is too accessible.

stpauler: I grew up with these as the main parts of our playgrounds. They were awesome:

We had almost that exact same rocket/slide combo at a park a few miles from my house (Hayward, CA). I think that the rocket was another section taller, the slide out from the rocket was a covered tube and there was a real long/steep slide coming down from the launch tower (with essentially a chain link fence tube connecting the rocket & the tower). Anytime we got to go to the park (there was one just down the street from us) I begged to be taken to the 'rocket park'. Over the years the safety nazis had their way & it became less & less fun. First there was a plate welded over the top of the rocket slide (you could still climb up from the bottom - for a while until they whole thing was removed), the chain link tube (scary as hell to climb across, swinging in the wind 25' up....) was replaced with a solid bridge, etc, etc, etc.

For several glorious years back in the 70's however there was at least one awesome public park in the US that inspired hordes of kids to dream about & act out space flight most every day for hours & hours. I still remember the pride I felt when I finally got up the nerve to enter the rocket the 'correct' way (climbing up the tower & entering the capsule from the top rather than using the spiral staircase up inside the rocket).

/thinking about it even more I think there was even a fireman's pole coming down from the top of the tower. Can you imagine the screams of outrage these days if anyone dared have an open doorway 25' off of the ground for their precious snowflakes to fall out of.

//It's tragic to see just how far we have fallen in the name of 'keeping the children safe'

swaniefrmreddeer: We had a witches hat here growing up. They took it out about 15 years ago, and how it lasted that long, no one knows. On a nice summer day, there would be so many kids on it you could no longer see the bars. Kids were continually getting crushed against the center pole. I witnessed sprains, broken bones, and more the one trip to the hospital in an ambulance. Ah, the good old days.

Same. Those things were almost designed to crush kids. It's probably for the best that they're not around any more.

NewportBarGuy: I like to think the broken bone scale signifies how much fun you had as a kid. My count is 5.

Broken arm, broken leg, severed big toe, and stitches on 5 different occasions. I had a great childhood.

stpauler: I grew up with these as the main parts of our playgrounds. They were awesome:
[i302.photobucket.com image 602x400]
[pics4.city-data.com image 518x692]

ok
the first one I remember
the second one would have given me nightmares for life

swaniefrmreddeer: My grandma used iodine and a bristle brush. Are all grandmothers sadistic?

Don't forget calamine lotion for insect bites, and Witch Hazel for........ well, whatever the hell else you needed dabbed on to fix an itch or scratch or scab, or something.

Mock26: Eddy Gurge: Is it bad that I just ordered a 15 foot monkey bar addition to my daughters playground in the backyard? Should I be rethinking this? What if she fell? Perhaps I need 4 feet of mulch underneath.

Mulch? Bah. Hard packed earth. That is the only way to "pad" the ground beneath a playground.

Meh. Asphalt covered playground is the way to go.

70's kid. I moved around a lot but every single neighborhood I lived in growing up had at least one kid who was missing part of a finger. Usually from a fireworks mishap or helping his dad fix the car (radiator fan blades were brutal).

Bathia_Mapes: Mock26: Eddy Gurge: Is it bad that I just ordered a 15 foot monkey bar addition to my daughters playground in the backyard? Should I be rethinking this? What if she fell? Perhaps I need 4 feet of mulch underneath.

Mulch? Bah. Hard packed earth. That is the only way to "pad" the ground beneath a playground.

Meh. Asphalt covered playground is the way to go.

We went with gravel at my elementary school playground in first grade when I lived in Illinois. Which was cool, because you could find bits of fossil crinoid among the rest of the gravel, which we mistakenly thought were, and called, "Indian beads". I can only imagine how many cool fossils there must have been at whatever quarry they got that gravel from.

/add me to the "fell off the monkey bars and broke my arm once" crowd.

When I was in the third grade, we moved to Oceanside California. There I got to attend a pleasant school where I and my brother and one other little girl were the only white kids. At recess, they played a game on the swing set that I'd never seen before.

That's what they called it. "The Game".The swingset was huge, and about 25-30 feet away was the 12-foot high chainlink fence that denoted the end of school property. The idea was to swing as high as you could get, then jump out of the swing and fly onto the fence. The higher you landed on the fence determined your score. One day, I'm watching this game, and a kid breaks his leg. Compound fracture. Blood all over the fence, and the ground. The ambulance comes and takes him away. Next recess, time to play "The Game" some more. Teachers weren't stopping that shiat. They just didn't want to get shivved.

They act like you have to go back 100 years to find this. I remember in the 80's we never wore safety equipment and we climbed, then jumped off, every high thing we could find.

Everyone thinks they were a friggin' daredevil when they were kids. Sheesh. Remember how shiat seemed so big when you were little and you go back and see them as an adult and realize it wasn't that big after all? Same concept applies to most of the 'dangerous' shiat you did when you were a kid too.