Last week, I shared a photo of the playground equipment from the local Family Park. A couple people commented about the difference between playgrounds today and when those of us olde folks were kids.

Family park is across the street from Veterans Park, the park I normally walk in. Yesterday, I walked a little farther than I normally do. Out behind the memorial garden (and flag) is the set of monkey bars featured above. Not quite as tall or dangerous as the ones I loved when I was growing up, but I’m still surprised that someone hasn’t asked for them to be removed.

Our playgrounds were probably more dangerous, but somehow, we survived.

Offered for One-Liner Wednesday by Linda G. Hill

All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.

Bridge to Nowhere

101 responses to “Still Safe — 1LinerWeds”

  1. good morning Dan, I remember playgrounds being far more dangerous when we e children but of course we didn’t care did we , we knew no better did we. I love you photos the wildlife are amazing and so is that fluffy cat! My favourite shots though we’re the fantastic ones of the shafts of sunlight shooting through the trees and bushes. Have a good day 💜

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    1. Thanks Willow. We didn’t know any better, and our parents weren’t likely to sue the town if we got hurt. Especially if we got hurt doing something we’d been told not to do 😉

      The sun is rising earlier, so each sunny day that I walk is a little different. I didn’t know I had captured those shafts of light. The sun was so bright, I couldn’t see the screen on my camera.

      Have a nice day, too.

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  2. Seeing the bright green new growth popping up just gives me a good feeling, always has. We had a smaller version of that jungle gym “bowl”in our backyard when the kids were little.

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    1. Kids love climbing. Our daughter played on this one when she was little, before they built the fancy one in the other park.

      I love how each day something new is blooming or turning green.

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  3. Bunnies and blooms are a sure sign of spring! Too bad they wouldn’t just eat the weeds…

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    1. The bunny says “tulips are overrated.” We’ve seen leaves this year, but no flowers. But the darn bunnies are so cute. I think we’re going to have baby bunnies soon.

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      1. Looking forward to that!
        💕

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        1. My wife saw one of the babies today. I’ll steal her photos for Saturday and Sunday.

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  4. Murphy's Law Avatar
    Murphy’s Law

    Yes, these monkey bars are much tamer than I’m used to, but I’m glad to see they still exist for kids today to have fun on. I hope playgrounds never become an endangered species!

    Bunnies and kitties and squirrels and a fat robin, oh my!

    The flowering quince is beautiful! And then there’s those deadly thorns. 😳

    I love the sunlight shining through those trees. Great shot.

    As always, Old Glory couldn’t take a bad picture if she tried.

    Happy Hump Day!

    Ginger🦋

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    1. Thanks Ginger. Our monkey bars were tall, with a cross bar at the top where you could hang umteen feet in the air – or so it seemed. We had a small set for little kids, but we all wanted to climb the big ones.

      The critters are all foraging in our back yard now. They seem to all get along, and they enjoy the food being served.

      The quince is beautiful, but those thorns – yikes. I’m glad I won’t have to prune them for a while.

      Happy Wednesday. I don’t think we’ll see rays f sunshine today, but I walked in a spring coat instead of a parka.

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  5. Spring has sprung in your neighborhood, and that is a good thing. Thank you for the chuckle thinking about the old monkey bars. :-)

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    1. I’m glad you liked the pictures, Judy. I have mostly fond memories of playgrounds in the 50s and 60s. A few scrapes and bruises. The Iodine was worse that the cuts 😉

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  6. A good walk, Dan. Thank you for taking me along.

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  7. Your walks are finally looking a bit more hospitable, Dan! I loved the old money bars and swings when I was a kid, but I remember a couple of kids getting very much hurt. Not I, thank goodness, yet the memories of the others left scars on them and my mind.

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    1. It’s still in the 30s and 40s as I walk, Kim, but the sun makes it feel warm. Today, I switched from a winter coat to a heavy spring jacket. But I walk between 7:00 and 7:30, so it’s still on the cold side.

      I remember a few broken bones (not me) from the monkey bars, and a few bruises of my own, but I remember the President’s Fitness push in the 60s. I suffered most of my injuries while riding my bike,

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  8. Pre-plastic playgrounds! Plus plenty of pretty pictures! (Enough alliteration for the day.)

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    1. I was going to commend you on the alliteration, Dave.

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  9. It’s so good to see Bernie back on duty: the morning glower. I love thinking about the old playgrounds as much as I love seeing the new ones. I too will be hoping the frost hasn’t hurt that apple tree; it gives you such good photos through the seasons!

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    1. As much as that cat has never liked me, Maureen, I was really worried that something had happened to him. He didn’t seem to appreciate my concern. We’ve had frost/freeze for three days, but not too severe. I look forward to taking pictures of the apple blossoms. Two years ago, frost killed them.

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  10. Live the Spring photos Dan.

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    1. Thanks Val. I’m glad.

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  11. Society has become so litigious, it’s ridiculous. At work once, I had an employee call to let me know he had tripped on a sidewalk downtown on his lunch break and wondered who he could sue. Seriously.

    Ha! The expression on that cat’s face is a riot. So sarcastic. Like he’s just waiting for you to approach him so he can swat you with a quick left hook. I love that little guy!

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    1. Yeah, and to think I was worried about that cat. He seems unmoved by my concern.

      A person on our office building sued the building owner because she “fell on a wet floor.” Her and I came in around the same time (different companies). They had video of her walking in, the floor not being wet, and her not falling. If the floor ever was wet, they were quick to put out those yellow A-Frame signs.

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      1. What?! Thank goodness for video cameras. Denying a claim was always a joy when we had solid evidence. How can you trust a person like that after such a blatant lie?

        That kitty is a little sweetheart. Just don’t try any fast moves, Dan. 😼

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        1. I think this cat probably likes women better than men. We had one like that. Sweet as could be to my wife and daughter, but nasty to me and our male dog.

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  12. I think of these as the hexagon bars. They were considered more dangerous – maybe because multiple kids could be flying around in there at the same time. I always panicked a little more at how high off the ground that horizontal one was. 😳 I won’t lie, I was grateful my kiddos had playgrounds that were more carefully designed, even if those designs were from fear of being sued.

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    1. The newer playground setups were more fun, but our daughter grew up with the older swings and bars. She played on the new ones for about two years. She “designed” a playscape that I built. She wanted a tree house, but we didn’t have a suitable tree. I said I would build one. I thought my wife was going to kill me when she realized it’s floor was 8′ off the ground and that it had a swinging bridge to a landing with a fireman’s pole. We had fun building it, and she used it for years.

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  13. It’s no wonder today’s young people constantly live in a state of fear-we took exploring and turned it into abject danger (even though at times it was-it was still a great way to learn how to navigate the ways of the world by exploring). Now everything has to be mapped out and guaranteed to be safe. When and where did we go wrong?

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    1. I’m not sure. I think it was when parents changed. If I got hurt on the monkey bars, my mother would be all: “Were you on the big ones? The ones I told you to stay off of?” Now it’s “Who’s responsible?”

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      1. You’re so right. People don’t want to take responsibility for their actions and their first reaction is “who has the most money to lose when I sue them.” I worked in the legal field most of my adult life and saw how everyone wants to sue at the drop of a hat for a payday that they think they are entitled to when they do something dumb. 🤦🏼‍♀️

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        1. I was picked for jury duty in a slip and fall case. The lawyer asked me if I had ever been injured on someone else’s property. I said yes. I tripped over an exposed tree root at a house we were renting. He asked if I felt I was entitled to compensation. I said, “No, I was putting down dirt to cover the roots and planting grass at the time when I fell.”

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          1. Bravo for you for your honesty. Some lawyers might have scratched you for cause. Serving on a jury is always a fascinating look at human nature.

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            1. They had been picking jurors for three days for a minor civil case. The judge told them if they didn’t seat a jury by noon, he’d assign 6 random people from the jury pool. I thought for sure that story (which was true) would get e out of serving.

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  14. We had uneven bars and those bars that you swing across hand by hand from one end to the other at my school. I could go backwards and forwards on the uneven bars doing full circles while sitting on the highest bar with both legs or one leg and do a nice 10 point dismount when I was a girl.

    It’s amazing we’re alive isn’t it what with all the dangers we faced…no seatbelts, no bicycle helmets, no cell phones, I walked to and from school just under 1.5 mile round trip to elementary school, and 4 miles round trip to high school and back, and I didn’t have to be home or check in until dinner time. Good times!

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    1. You must have been strong and coordinated. I was strong, but… Still, I loved trying all those things, and I loved climbing anything and everything. We walked to school, or rode bikes. No helmet and no bike lock required. I racked up some injuries, but they healed. The only problem was if I was hurt doing something I’d been told not to do.

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      1. Oh yeah, there was always that. That was the worst!

        Liked by 1 person

  15. Today our parents would get a notice from Child Protective Services regarding: 1. Staying out till dark 2. Walking and riding a bike everywhere. 3. Throwing stones at each other. 4. Using fireworks. 5. No helmet or knees pads while roller skating on the street. 6. Rollerskating on the street. 7. Carrying a pen knife. 8. Playing on the monkey bars. 9. Jumping off the swing when it reaches the highest position. 10. Hitting a hot slide in shorts. 11. Digging tunnels and underground forts 12. Hitting Mrs. Koski’s new aluminum awning with stones. 13. Drinking from anybody’s water faucet. 14. Ringing doorbells and running away. Loved the photos.

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        1. You’re welcome, John.

          Liked by 1 person

    1. #9–that was the best! Prank phone calls, too. No one had callback then!

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      1. Do you have Prince Albert in the can? You do? Please let the poor man out.

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        1. haha! First think I thought of!! 🤣

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    2. All good ones, John. And we all had a Mrs. Koski on the block. Our version had thick hedges, and she’d call the police when we hid behind them playing Hide & Seek. The police never made much of an effort to find us. I still carry a penknife, but I have to be more careful these days.

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      1. She called them on us too.

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  16. Wow! I’m surprised those monkey bars are still standing today. We used to have the ones built like cubes, one atop the other, with just a simple four-sided one at the very top. To think I used to stand on top of that! Good gawd.

    Speaking of frost, you should see the snow swirling between the buildings right now… all around the pretty magnolia. Sigh. April – you are far less trustworthy than March…

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    1. Standing on top was the best! It is a wonder we survived, but what did we know?

      Sorry about the snow. I’m only seeing the frost because I walk very early.

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      1. Big time! Not enough money in the world to make me try it now, however!

        Ugh. It’s stopped, thankfully.

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  17. It looks like a beautiful world around you, Dan.

    Ha! When I was in second grade, my small town school installed a set of monkey bars (2 big metal ladders upright, with a third going across the top to connect the two). An epidemic of broken arms quickly ensued. I was lucky and only got a bad sprain. Although I never was any good at them. Hugs.

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    1. Ours were circular with the center rising well above the outside. We used to play tag on those things, climbing and jumping until someone got hurt or a teacher/adult made us stop. I racked up a few sprains and bruises, but nothing broken.

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  18. I love lily of the valley! It was one of my mother’s favorite flowers.

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    1. I transplanted a couple dozen of these Liz when I put some pavers down in the front. They never got much sun where they were. I figured they wouldn’t survive, but they are taking over the whole side of the house. My wife loves them, so they are welcome to their new home.

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      1. Just what I like to hear!

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  19. I love the pictures because they remind me of spring.🌷🌺

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  20. Wow, “the sun was bright” photo is extraordinary, Dan. And as for play equipment, I agree with you — our playthings were probably more dangerous, but we survived. 😊

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    1. I didn’t even know what that photo looked like when I took it Gwen. The sun was so bright I couldn’t really tell. Everything we did was more dangerous, but yeah, we lived to tell the story.

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  21. The monkey bars similar to yours are in our local park as well. They both appear to have survived the great purge of all the stuff we managed to thrive upon now deemed unworthy of “growing up.” Nice to see the lilies’ arrival. R.I.P to the tulip. We have a singular hyacinth that appears each year in the most unusual of places. With the recent climate change here, it has tended to jump the gun before it should, but it still manages to provide a smile no matter what shape it ultimately takes.

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    1. I don’t think parents take their kids to Veterans Park until they start playing soccer. Our daughter crawled all over those bars and soared higher than probably allowed today on the “big swing set” – she only used the kids’ swing when we were still putting her in it.

      Our hyacinths, are thriving this year, but I swear some of them aren’t where I planted them.

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  22. Nice view of the flag in the sunlight above the trees.

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    1. Thanks Frank. I see that flag almost every day, and it always looks a little different.

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  23. I agree. Playgrounds aren’t the same as they used to be. Great photos, especially the sun coming through the trees!

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    1. You’re probably glad your grandkids are safer, but I hope you share some stories from the bad old days, Jan.

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  24. There are so many things from our childhood now considered horrifically dangerous. And yet we survived to produce kids who are now seem incapable of surviving. Certainly gives me pause for thought.

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    1. So many things make me pause for thought, Pam. We fought/protested for equal rights, for rights for women, for the environment, etc. etc. what happened to us?

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      1. We got tired of not being heard and no one backed us up.

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  25. Your gallery is outstanding!!

    I remember metal slides. In the Texas heat those things could scald you. Yikes!! 😳

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  26. My daughter broke her arm falling from the monkey bars in the school playground. But you’re right, that was over 30 years ago, and they’ve long since been replaced. She was just mad because it was right before summer vacation and she couldn’t go swimming. Come to think of it, it’s a long time since I’ve seen a child with an arm in a cast. (K)

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    1. That’s true. Casts used to be fairly common when we were in school. I am sorry to hear about the accident and the timing. My last broken bone had me in a cast during the summer.

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      1. I had plenty of stitches as a child but no broken bones. A cast in the summer is definitely no fun.

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        1. I had stitches, and I’ve had a tetanus shot at least in every decade of my life.

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          1. Yes those tetanus shots…about 10 years ago my doctor asked when was the last time I had one, and when I couldn’t remember, promptly administered one.

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  27. We called that a Jungle Gym at my school, Dan. The monkey bars were that thing with stairs on each end and bars between that you had to swing across by, one by one. The idea of safety for children has gone off the rails. When the recess bell rand we shot out of our classroom like bullets and I remember more injuries from fights on the playground than equipment disasters. Those poor long suffering teachers that had playground duty… 🤦‍♀️It must have been punishment for something. Lol

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    1. We didn’t have the bars you described. We had monkey bars that were in the form of a circular cage. It got narrower at the top, and had a single bar across the very top. We’d climb up to that, hang on it and drop to the ground. Playgrounds were crazy places.

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      1. but such wild freedom in them

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  28. Thankfully playgrounds are much safer today. It’s not the equipment, it’s the fall zone.

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    1. The park they built in our neighborhood when I was a little kid had all the equipment sitting on asphalt. The other popular material was “Red Dog.” They might not have had that in WV, but it was a reddish sharp rock, bigger than gravel that was made from crusted slag. The steel mills basically gave it away to anybody who would haul it away. It’s when I learned the meaning of “laceration.”

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      1. Ouch! I grew up with asphalt, not Red Dog. Many kids broke a bone. Our playground at school is very deep bark mulch. The trike path is ground up tires, pretty spongy.

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        1. You take good care of your kids, Jennie. Red dog was miserable stuff. We actually played baseball in a red dog parking lot behind a bar. The place wasn’t open during the day, and the owner didn’t mind. You tried not to get cut because that meant Mercurochrome, or Iodine- 😩

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          1. Yes! For ‘posterity’ I have saved my small glass jar of Mercurochrome. The label is 29 cents, and when you unscrew the lid, there’s a glass rod attached. That’s what you use to dab on the painful medicine. I think it was a little less painful than iodine. The orange stain was tell-tale.

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            1. They all burned, Jennie. I remember the day Bactine was introduced.

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  29. Hi Dan, children are completely over protected these days. They end up unable to cope with anything in life.

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    1. That was always our worry, Robbie. We let our daughter experience more, including the occasional failure, and the occasional danger. We taught her to be careful, but not to avoid everything.

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      1. Yes, that is what I’ve tried to do 😊

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  30. “Somehow we survived…” So true. I see a lot of the playground equipment I used to play on still today. Cracks me up wondering how our parents allowed us to go down there alone. We could laid their for days with broken legs. Hahaha. What an adventure it was…

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    1. It’s funny, Audrey. I remember having some lady run out of her house to clean a cut and put a band-aide on. Then, by the time I got home, my mother would already know what happened. I was hit by a car once, when I was in 1st grade (nothing really bad) and before I knew it, my mother was on the scene. That network of women in town was every bit as good as social media ;-)

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      1. Hahaha. For sure. I had a porch roof over my window growing up and us four kids would go out and play on top of the house while my dad was at work. Those neighborhood moms who lived even a half mile away could see us and would call my dad who worked in town. Crazy.

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  31. It’s a wonder any of us survived. Between running through the woods, walking barefoot, swinging on or walking on things too high for sanity, and skating and riding bikes unprotected, we courted danger every day. Life on the edge, eh?

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  32. You jarred my memory — I hadn’t thought about monkey bars in ages.

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    1. It has been a while.

      Like

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