The Playgrounds

Submitted by Blane Després, PhD

Thankfully we had a school in Paradise because it afforded us a playground to enjoy. There was a double teeter-totter (or seesaw) made of thick plank balanced on a steel rig to ensure it wouldn’t fall over while allowing users to freely go up and down as a cheap ride. The game on the teeter-totter became “dismount the other person.” There were no handles, no special moulded seat pan to hold you in place, no ropes or security belts to hold you in place. There was simply a thick plank that we could barely grab with our puny hands. Such joy. Such memories of imagining “lift off” into space as you launched upwards, eyes closed, heart bounding and stomach jolting as you reached the summit and plummeted to the ground once more, to repeat until someone begged to get on, you fell off, or you got bored of flying in such a short span of space and time. Maybe someone fell off and got a bruise, a stitch, a splinter. Somehow, we all lived through it.

There were two sets of swings mounted on beefy wood poles and sporting chains that could haul a logging truck. These chains poked through holes on either side of a wooden seat. And try as one might, no one broke any laws of physics by building up enough momentum to swing over the top of the ridge pole in a perfect circle, wrapping those chains around the top. We tried just about every time we got the chance. Couldn’t do it. And beneath each of those swings was the evidence of scuffing feet: the hollowed curve in the dirt from dragging feet to stop. Remember, the Teeter-Totter and swings were precursors to the roller-coaster for us! Those and the Lawrencetown Exhibition rides (sans roller coaster).

One set of swings was parallel to –facing– the school or back field depending on how you swung, and the other set ran perpendicular to the school very close to the outhouse. Pretty sure it was an outhouse with his and hers sides. Or perhaps it was a storage shed for those Dick and Jane readers. Could’ve been a cover for a still operation for all we knew. I don’t recall ever using it, which probably helps to explain the extra laundry my mother had to do.

The swings presented a particular problem to me one recess day in the late fall. It was an object lesson of physics meets chemistry meets physiology meets fundamental idiocy. I discovered that tongues and steel in the freezing cold a good mix do not make. It was on a dare in grade two or three, and some joker said it was a cool trick, “Try it!” So, being an aspiring, compliant village character, I jabbed my tongue against one of the swing chain links. To my surprise and chagrin, and to my spectators’ delight, I was suddenly welded to a spot from which I couldn’t get away. Never mind that everyone who went to that school for the near-century prior to my arrival probably handled those swings, or that anyone ever thought of sanitizing them (what a ridiculous thought, no?), my tongue was out of my mouth and firmly attached to the chain.

That was only part of my growing problem for at that same moment, the school bell rang announcing both the end of recess and my impending doom. If I couldn’t detach from that chain, what would happen when I went into the school late? It was my first encounter with cognitive dissonance: grow old and be mocked as the man with the tongue on the swing chain, or be the youngest student at Paradise school to be stoned for being late after recess? That it was a difficult decision I likely don’t need to explain. Then again, perhaps the teacher would send out a search party? Neither thought was comforting.

As I listened to the remaining few voices and the laughter fade away behind the closing doors into that haven from the cold, I panicked, and with a decisive action, I yanked my tongue loose. It stung like a bee, and the rest of that day and day after, I suffered the guffaws of my comrades –my torturers– and the misery inside my mouth. Many students came and thanked me later, though, for demonstrating what they knew all along: warm tongues and frozen steel are an invitation to pain and ridicule. If only I’d eaten snow or an ice cube beforehand.

There were three other areas of play around the school: the dirt space on which the teeter-totter and swings sat, some bushes behind the outhouse-shed-distillery, and the wide, long field, bounded by bushes and trees, far behind the school towards the railway tracks. Although the front of the school had an expansive U-shaped driveway, we weren’t permitted to play there. Something about transport trucks, the main (only) road, and I suppose making sure recess noise level stayed behind the school? I suspect it also had something to do with Audley Thompson’s Texaco station and that if we were seen playing out front of the school it would scare away business. Apparently, that’s exactly what happened, and the Texaco ended. The bushes didn’t work well for playing. The big field, however, was or became the ball-field. I don’t think it was ever mowed, and the “bases” were little more than scuffed dirt patches in an unkempt grassy field. But it was a ball diamond!

I can only recall using that field in elementary school once. It was for a sports or activities day that included all the small schools around (Clarence or something like that). We ran human wheelbarrow races, running, potato sack races, teeter-totter vaulting, swing gymnastics. There were ribbons for winners, nothing for losers, and everyone had fun. Well, perhaps the losers didn’t have fun. I’m imagining that they did because it was a day off school and filled with things to do outside.

The ball-field gained more and more significance as we teens became increasingly interested in doing something in the summers besides sitting around in the humid heat wondering what to do. (Me: “Whadyou wanna do? Someone: I dunno. Whadyou wanna do? Me again: I dunno.”) Somehow, we chopped down some trees, erected them behind the shortstop, and attached chicken wire to them. Someone had a bat and ball and a few of us had gloves (probably the Logans – they lived in the Ellenhurst mansion), and we would get together, “toss the bat” to pick teams, and play ball. Those of us who couldn’t afford a glove (all of us except the Logan boys) used bare hands. It was a rite of passage, a toughening of resolve and flesh, and it was something to do. The adults even challenged us to a game one evening. Only once. But it was a lasting memory of laughing, chiding, challenges and pokes. Were that there had been more.

The ball-field also served as the proving grounds for kite-flying by those people to the left-side of the Texaco garage. Every spring word got out that they were out with their latest creation. Just seeing a real box kite or wild variation hovering high up in the air on a rare windy day on the end of string was as exciting as if we’d been at a NASA launch. They even let us “fly” those kites for a few seconds. That was alright, though. It was the sheer joy of standing next to kite geniuses that made for lasting memories and made us want to become engineers or space explorers. Mostly, it helped pass the time, albeit briefly.

Alas, before the memory had a chance to solidify into nostalgia, that shed-outhouse-thing disappeared (confiscated in a police sting I imagine), the swings vanished, the teeter-totter trundled off to join a circus, and the playgrounds returned to a silent, empty space.

From 1960-1973