It kills me that it’s been 20 years since I was in elementary school. I still remember going in with my mom to meet my kindergarten teacher and feeling an upwelling of wonder and surprise when the class hamster in his exercise ball bumped me in the ankle. That was in 1982. And today, I don’t know what it was, but something triggered a memory, a feeling, that shot me back to the playground for a minute, and that got me thinking about just how much recess fucking rocked.
We had two recesses, little and big. Little recess immediately followed lunch and its purpose was to hold us speed-munchers until the teachers got finished eating. After we were done (mom always made our lunches, which were usually PB&J, an orange sliced into quarters, Wheat Thins, and a Hi-C) we would leave the cafeteria and go out to a blacktop area that was bound by the kindergarten, the gym, and woods. There was nothing out there aside from some yellow lines delineating hopscotch, dodgeball and four-square. My friends and I usually hung out on the boulders that lined the woods. When we were young we’d climb them and play Jem or Inspector Gadget, and when we were older we sat around on them and wove complicated friendship bracelets with the ends safety-pinned to the knees of our jeans. If we got our hands on a red playground ball we would play Slam War. If we had a jump rope, we’d play Queen Bee. If we didn’t have anything, we’d play freeze tag or Alligator or do clapping rhymes like Miss Lucy and Miss Mary Mack.
The end of little recess was proclaimed by Mrs. Lord, Cafeteria Aide Extraordinaire. Her name suited her: she sternly yet kindly commandeered our respect, more so than the teachers, and she was LOUD. When it was over, she would bellow “LIIIIIIIIIIINE UUUUUUP!” and we would freeze for a second before taking off—racing, flailing, galloping and zig-zagging like drunken carnies—into single-file lines by grade.
Then it was time for big recess. We were marched around the school, which sat on a giant hill that led down to the fields. I’ve been back there in recent years and the hill isn’t THAT big, but it seemed like it then, and when you were at the bottom looking up the school seemed like the ivory tower in the Neverending Story, even though it was just a 1960's style one-story brick building.
Down the hill there were wooden playground structures that are probably illegal today. One of them had two large balance beams about four feet high and 20 feet apart with a tall hangman thing in the middle with ropes hanging down. You were supposed to climb up on one of the beams, have someone hand you a rope, and swing across to the other beam. What if you fell off the rope, or missed the beam, or slammed into the beam, or any body-mangling combination thereof? Back in the 80s, that was not a concern. You got hurt, you bled, you went to the nurse. Just like my parents were evidently unconcerned when they let me climb on my neighbor’s rusting, disintegrating jungle gym.
The best thing, though, was the tire tepee. The tire tepee was a pyramid shaped structure with two sides of tires you could climb up. The third side was open, with a ramp that led up to a platform and a big space underneath. It was so cool you couldn’t get near it until you were in sixth grade. You had to stay a safe distance away and practice your round-offs and front walkovers. But once you got there, it was great. It was the one place where boys and girls played together, because it was so cool everybody wanted to play on it. You always ended up playing adventure games because the boys always wanted to make gun and bomb sounds and capture you and throw you in jail. Jail was the space underneath. You’d get tossed in there and you’d have to try to escape through the tire holes, and there’d be guards you had to foil. Whoever managed to escape and climb to the top of the tepee won.
I wish I had a tire tepee now. I’d fill it with Moroccan pillows and beanbag chairs and a mini-fridge and hang lanterns and read in there. Underneath would be a big fluffy cushion with afghans and more pillows for naps and frolicking. And sometimes I’d climb to the top and declare myself the winner.
We had two recesses, little and big. Little recess immediately followed lunch and its purpose was to hold us speed-munchers until the teachers got finished eating. After we were done (mom always made our lunches, which were usually PB&J, an orange sliced into quarters, Wheat Thins, and a Hi-C) we would leave the cafeteria and go out to a blacktop area that was bound by the kindergarten, the gym, and woods. There was nothing out there aside from some yellow lines delineating hopscotch, dodgeball and four-square. My friends and I usually hung out on the boulders that lined the woods. When we were young we’d climb them and play Jem or Inspector Gadget, and when we were older we sat around on them and wove complicated friendship bracelets with the ends safety-pinned to the knees of our jeans. If we got our hands on a red playground ball we would play Slam War. If we had a jump rope, we’d play Queen Bee. If we didn’t have anything, we’d play freeze tag or Alligator or do clapping rhymes like Miss Lucy and Miss Mary Mack.
The end of little recess was proclaimed by Mrs. Lord, Cafeteria Aide Extraordinaire. Her name suited her: she sternly yet kindly commandeered our respect, more so than the teachers, and she was LOUD. When it was over, she would bellow “LIIIIIIIIIIINE UUUUUUP!” and we would freeze for a second before taking off—racing, flailing, galloping and zig-zagging like drunken carnies—into single-file lines by grade.
Then it was time for big recess. We were marched around the school, which sat on a giant hill that led down to the fields. I’ve been back there in recent years and the hill isn’t THAT big, but it seemed like it then, and when you were at the bottom looking up the school seemed like the ivory tower in the Neverending Story, even though it was just a 1960's style one-story brick building.
Down the hill there were wooden playground structures that are probably illegal today. One of them had two large balance beams about four feet high and 20 feet apart with a tall hangman thing in the middle with ropes hanging down. You were supposed to climb up on one of the beams, have someone hand you a rope, and swing across to the other beam. What if you fell off the rope, or missed the beam, or slammed into the beam, or any body-mangling combination thereof? Back in the 80s, that was not a concern. You got hurt, you bled, you went to the nurse. Just like my parents were evidently unconcerned when they let me climb on my neighbor’s rusting, disintegrating jungle gym.
The best thing, though, was the tire tepee. The tire tepee was a pyramid shaped structure with two sides of tires you could climb up. The third side was open, with a ramp that led up to a platform and a big space underneath. It was so cool you couldn’t get near it until you were in sixth grade. You had to stay a safe distance away and practice your round-offs and front walkovers. But once you got there, it was great. It was the one place where boys and girls played together, because it was so cool everybody wanted to play on it. You always ended up playing adventure games because the boys always wanted to make gun and bomb sounds and capture you and throw you in jail. Jail was the space underneath. You’d get tossed in there and you’d have to try to escape through the tire holes, and there’d be guards you had to foil. Whoever managed to escape and climb to the top of the tepee won.
I wish I had a tire tepee now. I’d fill it with Moroccan pillows and beanbag chairs and a mini-fridge and hang lanterns and read in there. Underneath would be a big fluffy cushion with afghans and more pillows for naps and frolicking. And sometimes I’d climb to the top and declare myself the winner.
1 Comments:
Yeah, pretty soon they'll have MCAS-approved aptitude-building recess activities for third graders. I know what you mean though... we used to have a zipline that ran between two trees that were at least a half mile apart. How was that a good idea?
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