Backyard toys

I often walk through back alleys and yards rather than major streets. The other day I finally noticed that practically EVERY yard has a play area with a unique selection of structures and equipment. I started thinking about it because I noticed a spectacular toy along my way home. It’s a wooden drum mounted with excellent bearings on an axel. Naturally I tried it. This toy is not for wimps. On the first step the drum started turning faster than I wanted, but since I’m tall enough to suspend myself from the tops of the handrails I did that, rather than learn “on the fly” how to control this wheel of terror.

It’s a great toy, and I would have spent hours on it as a kid but nobody thought to build one anywhere I ever went. At least we had teeter-totters. Somehow over the years teeter-totters were deemed too dangerous for American kids (I wondered briefly if American kids were considered too stupid for the teeter-totters, but then I remembered how many times my friends and I nearly crushed each other’s spines by jumping off of the downhill end and I decided I’d better not mention anything about the intelligence of American kids.) Anyway, kids here still get to play with teeter-totters too.

Then there are the climbing structures. My favorite one looks like the Eiffel Tower, but I’m pretty fond of the one with the circular horizontal ladder too. The amazing thing is how different they are from each other. I imagine each structure was custom made by an imaginative welder with plenty of steel tubing. While a few pieces of playground equipment have plastic parts, most of them look like they could have been made long ago. In spite of their age, these toys certainly don’t look abandoned. The metal parts wear jackets of colorful paint, in some cases reapplied as often as if aboard a Navy ship.

I started a little photo album of these backyard toys here. I could have showed many more interesting toys if I added stuff from any number of public parks, but parks feel like a different topic. I am impressed to find many different styles of backyard playground, and without even walking far from home.