Play Date

On Tuesday, teachers and counselors from the Hawthorne Community Center brought their small charges to Speedway's Meadowood Park. As you can see there were a lot of happy children climbing, swinging and clambering over the various slides, swings and walls. Sadly, this visit was a special event for the children, who do not have access to comparable facilities in their neighborhood.

Obviously, they were all using every possible moment from this excursion to try out the climbing walls and a contemporary version of the "monkey bars" I enjoyed when I was a kid, before climbing on the waiting school bus to return to their class rooms, then home.

As an adult, I found the best, most surprising part to be that tan pavement you can see in the third picture. When I stepped on it I was really startled because it felt as though I was standing on my bed; it is springy and cushioned to absorb the contact from stumbles and falls, I suppose like a gymnast's floor exercise mat.