ABSTRACT
My older sister Sue and I helped some, but mostly squatted and watched, as Dad dug the foot-deep hole, filled it with cement, and eased the six-foot piece of plumbing pipe upright in the mix. When it set, he fastened an elbow joint to the pipe's top. It held the horizontal bar whose other end lodged firmly into the old maple. He made two trapezes and a swing from lengths of chain, small pipes, and a slab of wood, and hung them from the bar. The dozen, or so kids in the backyard tribe gathered to see what he would do next. A lower horizontal bar off to the right supported the teetertotter, a long, flat board nailed to iron circles the bar ran through. Then came the Tarzan rope, which swung from the maple's largest limb, with a great knot at the bottom for a
Off to the left of the tree, another bar supported the twoseater ferris wheel. This bar ran through the middle of two ten-foot boards, held apart by a couple of two-foot iron pipes at either end. Dad hung a small swing seat on chains from each pipe. One person slid into the bottom seat; another climbed the latter to the platform built for this purpose, and ( very carefully) got into the top seat. Thus balanced, each rider pumped it like a swing-back and up, then over the top and down again, as slow or as fast as we wanted. The pace of this muscle-powered machine was determined by mutual delight, or through a lot of hollering, threats, negotiating, or foot dragging when all else failed. Sometimes some of the boys dumped each other out on, their heads, then we kicked them out for a day.
