Retrospect: the swings

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions shifting patterns of children’s play.

At age six, I arrived on a military base in early summer. It was easy to find kids outside, so the pace of my life was suddenly rapid.

One crucial meeting place was a swing set that stood in the middle of the field behind my house. It had three swings that were high enough to be fun even for teenagers. Several different groups of kids, not entirely disjoint, would meet at that swing set. Their members would pass by it every so often to check for others. People who wanted to be found would ride the swings. At the same time, one group that was hiding from another might check the swing set from a hidden position in case members of a temporarily hostile group were there.

For a couple of years, that swing set was central to the social life, summer or winter, of the elementary kids in its neighbourhood. Eventually, however, a few of those kids moved away, to be replaced, more or less, by new arrivals.

Interestingly, the new arrivals did not find the swings so important as had the previous kids (including myself). Someone watching would have noticed the swings vacant more and more often. If you went there waiting for people to show up, you might never meet anyone.

How such a fixture as that swing set could lose its importance, I couldn’t understand, yet I could see it was happening. The final year and a half I lived on that base, those swings, as well as my social life, were much less busy. I always wondered what the new kids did instead.

I still recall, fondly, those days ’76-’78 when, to join in some fun, all one had to do was walk over to that swing set, about 90 seconds from the house.