In The 80s I Really Loved Getting Stuck
Welcome to the 1980s and my strange affinity for getting stuck on playground equipment.
There was nothing like growing up in the 1980s and playing on the many types of playground equipment that were available to us through school, parks, and other neighborhood enclaves.
I loved playing on playground equipment more than any other thing. And despite having a physical disability I was a climber.
I practiced climbing a lot around my house. I was always climbing up and down the drawers in my house.
I even had a dresser drawer tip over on top of me once, because I climbed up the drawers when I was about eight years old. Miraculously, nothing happened to me and my parents didn’t believe anything was wrong because I was so calm when I was calling for help.
When I was even younger I climbed onto the countertops, got into the upper cabinet, got out the cough syrup and drank the entire bottle. That’s an experience I never want to repeat.
I’m not exactly sure why I drank a bottle of cough syrup considering I don’t particularly like the taste of cough syrup, but that’s what I did. I wasn’t even five and I actually have a scar from the incident because I’m emetophobic.
Poison control told my mother to give me an expectorant to make me throw up. That was the absolute nightmare response for me. While I was doing so I freaked out and threw my head up in an upward position. The toilet seat smashed into my forehead, scarring me for life.
Where I went to elementary school, there was a blacktop area of swings, a large slide, multiple monkey bars, a fireman’s pole jungle gym, and merry-go-round. The other area was with wood chips and it was a wood playground structure that you could climb on with multiple slides, and nets, monkey bars, and more. I loved playing on both.
I grew up in a small town that also had a park called Railway Park, along the railway tracks. There were slides, plastic building structures, swings, monkey bars, and more.
There was also the local elementary I could not attend because of inaccessibility in the school. It had slides, swings, and more. I ended up moving across the street and down the corner from the school when I was nine. That meant multiple places to play.
Being physically disabled, getting on playground equipment was not always easy. I often had to crawl on my hands and knees to get up. I often played alone because other kids were embarrassed to play with me or didn’t want to wait for me.
I didn’t care because I could do what I wanted. I was inventive enough to make up my own games and stories. It was sometimes lonely, but I liked playing alone. Nobody could tell me what to do!
Also, being disabled I had a penchant for occasionally getting stuck in playground equipment or other similar play structures. Here are a few stories about some of the more entertaining times I’ve gotten stuck.
I grew up in Toledo, Ohio about two hours from Cleveland. I also had very active grandparents that participated in the lives of their grandchildren quite a bit.
Every few years they would take their grandchildren to SeaWorld of Cleveland. That was back before I became a budding marine wildlife activist and fought hard for the whales to be free.
To be fair, a lot of us kids did not understand what was going on, and I’m not sure our parents or grandparents really understood how horrible SeaWorld actually was/is. But when you know better you must do better.
Back in the mid-80s, my cousin Chris and I went together with my grandparents. Previously, my grandparents took my brother with my older cousin. It was a rite of passage to go with your cousin.
SeaWorld had many different play areas beyond the aquatic shows.
Previously I had never been allowed in the ball pit and none of us understood why. My grandparents were much more tolerant and willing to bend when it came to me asking to do things, and that’s how I ended up getting stuck in the wild ball pit of SeaWorld Cleveland.
I have a neuromuscular disability so I don’t have the strength to push past a bunch of balls apparently. That was news to me. It’s probably one of the few times my parents were right about not letting me do things. Well, my grandpa was willing to let me try and boy did we learn a lesson that day!
Did you know that ball pits have zip up side entrances? I do. I didn’t know before the time I got stuck in the ball pit though. I jumped in and thoroughly got stuck. Of course I freaked out and was crying. I was only about four or five years old and here I was stuck in a massive ball pit at SeaWorld.
My grandfather could not get to me, so he had to get one of the employees who not only had to shut the ball pit down temporarily, but he had to unzip the ball pit, remove a bunch of the balls, and lift me out of it.
Never again did I ever go near a ball pit! I learned my lesson. Of course, it created a great story to tell the family, and I was reminded for years about how I got stuck in the ball pit and how my grandfather should not be trusted to let me do whatever I want!
The next incident of getting stuck was on my school playground that I mentioned above.
It was on the blacktop area. The fireman poles were a set of four poles in the center of a round jungle gym. You would climb up the round part that wrapped around them, and in the center were the poles which you could slide down.
I was always really good about climbing up, but I didn’t have the strength to hold my legs together to slide down the pole. I didn’t have the ability to figure out how to climb down. So, a lot of times I would just get stuck.
It was an average day in kindergarten. My best friend, Jen Ducket, and I always played together. We also always got harassed by Greg Markham and Robert Martinez, two of the boys in our class.
Greg, in particular, was a huge problem. At one point, Jen and I were forced to go to the principal’s office. Greg had a penchant for breaking all of our crayons in half and he was such a problem that we had to go and explain to the principal, Mr. Mangold, what was happening.
Mr. Mangold was a large and imposing man who enjoyed scaring kindergartners. It was an experience of nightmares for us. Jen, who sadly passed away from cancer last year, and I had always joked about how terrified he made us and how scary he was. We bonded together by that experience. Forever changed.
Greg also was obsessed with harassing us on the playground.
He would chase us both screaming, I’m going to kiss you, and he would try to grab us. I couldn’t run as quickly, so I had to climb. Jennifer would run wherever she could, though she never wanted to leave me.
That being said, we both had self-preservation in mind, and I would climb up while she would get away quickly! That’s how I ended up at the top of the fireman poles.
I don’t know why it was safe up there but that was one of the few places Greg would not get us. I don’t know if he himself was afraid to climb or just not coordinated at it.
We were kindergartners. I was tiny and that allowed me to move faster despite being disabled. I could wiggle in and out of spaces and roll around and climb upward.
It’s a skill I wish I still had.
Anyway, Greg was doing his regular chase, and I would usually only go so high. If I went up half of the jungle gym, I could usually get away. However, I wasn’t thinking about that as I climbed and climbed. I knew he was behind me and I did not want any boy kissing me for certain! Especially without my permission.
So, as I sat at the top I realized very quickly I didn’t know how to get down.
As I clung to the metal bar that I was holding onto at the very top of the jungle gym, I looked down and I told people to get my teacher. The whistle had been blown and I was stuck.
With the whistle blown Greg finally left me alone. He sauntered away from the bottom of the jungle gym like it was no big deal and he had not been harassing us all day.
For me, it was embarrassing. Everybody saw me getting stuck. A lot of the older kids snickered because they found it funny. I was just grateful when my kindergarten teacher, Marcia, plucked me off at the top of the jungle gym and lifted me down.
There was no actual judgment as she said the following to me.
“You’re okay! I got you. Now we are not going to do this again are we?”
I looked at her solemnly and she looked back at me like, kid I understand this boy is chasing you and I’m going to make sure he stops. My teacher had tried in vain for a long time to get control of Greg. It was a problem she had to deal with as well. And she recognized that we were being tormented by him.
I never had to climb up to the top of the jungle gym again, and I never got stuck. Greg would still occasionally bother us, but that was the last time he chased us in such a way that it made me climb to the top of the play structures to get away from a boy who wanted to kiss me.
Now that I cannot walk, all I have are my memories of getting stuck. They are funny and interesting memories that tell a lot about what I had to deal with as a disabled child growing up.
While I look upon these memories with a bit of humor, a bit of fondness, a bit of nostalgia – it makes me yearn for the days when playing on playground equipment was easy and life was so much simpler. Even if it meant I got stuck.
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