The Playground Project

Whirligig of Terror in Texas

There was a time when the local playground was the Final Frontier, when stepping up onto an enormous, boiling hot metal slide or daring to spin the whirligig meant putting your very life – or at least your fragile kid ego – on the line. Those rides made a man out of me.

Alas, today’s playground are bland plastic shadows of their former glory, sanitized by uncreative civil engineers working under their law suit happy constituents. The edges are dull. The spinning is slow. There is no longer any concrete or gravel or serrated edges on which to test a kid’s metal. Or is there?

The Awesome and Dangerous Project is an attempt to discover the playgrounds that are left, the outliers that have held their ground and continue to this day to test little people and adults alike. And they exist, as you will see in these following essays.

And what can you do to do ensure that these dangerous and awesome throw-backs continue their sacred duty to be testing rounds for our kids. Well, ride them of course. Get out there and skin that knee. You’ll be a better person for it.

If you know of any playground or rides in your neck of the woods that can be included in the Awesome and Dangerous Project, drop me a note and a picture. I’d like to give it a whirl!