Kickin' it Old School Style

Over the last few years I have noticed a very disturbing trend. Right before our very eyes playgrounds have been disappearing from all over Canada. Look outside and see for yourself: they are gone.

Sure, there may still be parks and maybe even a slide and a swing or two but the good old fashioned playgrounds of yesteryear have gone the way of the Dodo bird, Pogs, and Joe Piscapo’s career.

Instead our children now amuse themselves on super safe pieces of plastic that were designed by some egghead to remove not only the danger from the outdoors but the fun as well. My generation earned their stripes from falling off the merry-go-round and we developed self esteem from tackling the monkey bars and living to talk about it. As well, there isn’t a 20 or 30 year old alive who can’t talk for hours about the vicious burns they used to get from metals slides on sunny days.

But all of that has now changed. Kids now play on “Adventure Playgrounds” that really are nothing more than plastic tubing, sawdust and enough safety measures to kill any chance of lawsuit or fun.

Alas, ladies and gentlemen there is hope and its name is Korea, sweet glorious Korea. The place where lawsuits and liability haven’t yet been discovered and where old school playgrounds flow like preverbal milk and honey. Every day I walk home past a great little park and after reading a story on the website www.retrocrush.com about the disappearance of playgrounds I was inspired to write this post and to show you what Canadian children are missing out on.

This might look like any regular playground from afar, but oh no, it’s a keeper. Not only does it contain the wonderful old toys from my childhood but it’s intertwined them with some of the cooler features from new playgrounds (like the Tic, Tac, Toe board). It’s some sort of a hybrid playground that we believe must have been built by aliens as it is much more advanced then anything we have ever come across before.

This playground is too cool to be content with a mere merry-go-round so it has two personal sized ones instead. I have never seen of one of these before but it absolutely rocks. It has two small discs that fully rotate on the bottom and then a metal bar to hold on with on the top. It is, with out a doubt, the most dangerous piece of playground equipment I have ever encountered and god how I loved it.

Of, course in this picture you can see why something like this would never be allowed in Canada. Although, it’s a lot of fun this bad boy would probably be enough to wipe out an entire city of the Canadian kids who grew up on today’s playgrounds. Hell, I bet most of today’s kids have never even seen metal before and would think that it’s some new form of plastic.

I don’t really understand this particular piece but its metal and you can climb it so it gets thumbs up from me.

Ah here ya go, the granddaddy of them all, the metal slide. This thing is so cool that it ought to have its own floor at every museum in the world (ok well maybe not, but you get my point). These are all but extinct now and that’s a real shame. Even though I was lucky enough to ride it on a cloudy day I still gave it its proper respect and never looked it in the eyes or addressed it by its first name.

This looks like some sort of casualty from the old Russian Olympic Team. I think it might have been part of a gymnastics club at sometime but for whatever reason it’s now in the local playground. You can’t seem to do much with it except for fall off and that’s basically what we did.

This bridge makes the Okanagan Bridge seem enjoyable by comparison. It’s about as shaky as Hillary Clinton’s chances of presidency and every time I walked across it I fell. Conveniently it has a zillion spaces for your limbs to fall though so you never have to worry about not getting hurt.

Here’s an oldie but a goody, the classic monkey bars. There’s enough metal here to build, well, hmmm, something made out of a lot of metal I guess. Anyway, they brought back a rush of childhood memories and not only did Jo and I both make it across but we managed to do it without the help of the local children who were staring at us with all the awe and wonder deserved for our stellar feat.

Here’s a shot of some classic Korean playground Graffiti. Although I cannot translate completely I believe that it says something about your mother and sister.

Here is some sort of metal rope ladder that is surrounded by metal poles and a metal structure. This thing would eat our children alive.

Jo’s rocking out on the swings and although this is still a common feature of many playgrounds what’s truly strange is that the metal rings are protected by a plastic covering. It would truly take a special child to survive the personal merry-go-round, the metal slide, and the crazy bridge, only to be taken out by a swing set. The safety equipment on the swings is also the only kind in the entire park. Oh, mystical Korea, how I wish I understood thee.

Ok, so we don’t exactly understand what this is or what it does. But we know that every time we tried to use it we failed and that it will probably take months of forensic evaluations before we have a proper diagnostic of its full powers and abilities.

And of course what playground wouldn't be complete without a situp bench. Perhaps that's why Canadian children are so fat and Korean children aren't. They have infused play with exercise. It's brilliant, but I only got as far as three situps before my pants split. Of course looking at that picture I can see that I don't need to do any more situps as I'm already quite the sexy beast.

Well, that’s it, a Korean playground in a nutshell. It’s like traveling back to the time when Canadian children were smart enough to not get killed on a playground.

I fear that we are raising a generation that will be lost if the plastic protective covering ever comes off and I think it’s only right to send each and every one of them over here to put some hair on their chest (that statement is gender neutral, Shayne and Jo.com does not support one gender over the other. We merely support hair.)

Cheers

Shayne