#16: Sliding Into Danger
Kids today don’t know how good they have it with their beautiful, ergonomically designed, exciting, and—most of all—safe playgrounds. I go past parks sometimes and am amazed; the stuff they build for kids now is palatial compared to what we had.
When I was a kid, playgrounds were dangerous and they hurt and that was the way we liked it. And nothing was more dangerous than the freestanding slides. It was a long way up and a lot of chances to fall off. If you safely made it up the ladder, you were whizzing at high speeds down a burning hot metal chute. Man, I miss those days.