Is it just me, or are we trying to make childhood accident-proof? All the really good playgrounds -- with stainless steel slides that reach nearly 5000 degrees in the summer, and the big wooden play structures made from splintered redwoods -- have been replaced with sterile, plastic playgrounds filled with bright colors, pirateship steering wheels and tic-tac-toe. Nice try. But no matter how safe the playground is, kids will be kids and something's getting broken.
Don't tell the playground police, but trees are made of wood, too. Junior might not get a splinter from the redwood jungle gym, but that sequoia lurking next to the water fountain is just waiting to strike.
A favorite sport among the first graders at my daughter's school was the Monkey-Bar Chicken Fight. One little lady was the playground champion until she slipped one day in a heated match. Landing on her leg
just the right way left her in a cast from hip to toe and on the injured-reserve list for the rest of the year. She was still quite popular; most of the kids loved taking rides in her wheelchair.
A hallmark of any good schoolyard playground? Gophers. Stepping in a hole during a great game of kickball is a surefire ticket to take a ride on the sprain train. Ankles are the most common sites of this injury, but depending on how one lands, wrists may be just as much at risk.
Not common, though particularly dangerous, spinal injuries are a danger whenever kids leave the ground floor. I used to love launching myself off the swingset at the pinnacle of the forward arc. Good thing I never took a header.
Of course, if Junior does take a header off the swings, he may clobber his noggin hard enough to do some real damage. I'm much more worried about my kids clocking their melons on that chunky school asphalt than on the freaky mulch under the slide. Huh, I wonder how many splinters they get from the mulch (see above).
I'm still waiting for the TV news magazine expose on the dangers of tether ball. I think every kid worth standing in the circle has taken one straight in the smeller. And if the school nurse isn't tending to a nosebleed, she is putting an
ice pack on the black eye your little angel got from an elbow thrown while wrestling for control of the ship's wheel. Don't even get me started on dodgeball!
