Big slide into past

I had just done something foolish.

Hoping to get a good photo of the Easter egg hunt in Haynes Park, I had climbed up a jungle gym unit onto the new piece of playground equipment installed in the area known as the "kiddie corral," the play area for the youngest kids.

The new piece is great. It's one of those highly-engineered things with multiple slides and walkways and ladders and who knows what else. It's largely covered with heavy duty plastic to withstand the weather. It provides an imaginative landscape for play - it could be a pirate ship, a castle, a mountain, a fortress, a barn, or any of a dozen other locales - and it is designed for safety.

Except for guys who are 61 years old.

Having gotten up and found a great vantage point for photographs, I soon found myself wondering how the heck I was going to get down. Could I do it safely? Could I do it without sacrificing what little dignity I have left?

And then I looked to my right and noticed something missing: The big slide.

It was gone. All that remained as evidence of its existence was a stony outline in the grass. The slide - the big slide - had vanished.

The big slide was as unlike the play equipment I was standing on as it was possible to be.

It was steel. It was shiny. And it was incredibly tall.

To climb it was always an adventure. To climb it the first time was to conquer Mount Everest.

That was especially true if there were older kids in the park - experienced Sherpas who had conquered Everest before you were in kindergarten.

The sweat would start forming on your palms before you took the first step, before you grasped the cold steel rod that provided the only grip that would prevent you from plummeting to the unforgiving earth.

The first steps came easily. But after about five, your perspective changed. So this is how the world looks to grown-ups? Who knew?

Then, about halfway up, panic would set in.

Ahead of you, moving truculently, other kids were making their way up the Himalayan path to the top of the slide. Beneath you, carping and moaning, were still others - jaded travelers who had made this trek into the clouds many times - who thought you were far too slow climbing the ladder.

And then, without warning, you were at the top, a tiny platform, unwelcoming and without compromise.

And you froze. You hesitated immeasurably while the kids behind you urged you to get a move on.

Could your legs and arms and nerve endings master the task of stepping onto the platform, then sitting down into a proper sliding position, all without miscalculating and falling to the stone below?

How many have gone before me, you wondered for an instant. How many have reached these heights?

Surely, you thought, I'm higher than the roof of our house. Surely, I'm higher than the courthouse. Do those clouds seem closer than they did before?

And then, as rapidly as it had started, the reflection ended, lost in the exhilaration of the slide - sliding down Everest! - down back to the playground, often into the welcoming splash of a mud puddle.

But now, as I stood on the safety-rated playground equipment and stared at where the slide had been, I knew an era had drawn to a close.

City officials tell me the big slide - Jay County's Mount Everest of a slide - was removed last fall for insurance liability reasons. Like the high dive at the pool, it is a thing of history.

The slide was gone. But I was still stuck.

Having taken my pictures of the egg hunt, I momentarily considered taking the safety-approved slide. But in the end, I climbed back down the monkey bars to the ground.

I figure the insurance underwriters didn't want me up there anyway.[[In-content Ad]]