Tonight Chad, Brian, Lorrel, Vanessa and I volunteered at PBS per Chad's request as his birthday present. We were all laughing and giddy, and somehow we started talking about playing handball. Once in the KCTS phone room awaiting donation calls, Vanessa and I started talking about our adventures on the playground as kids.
It's funny the life we had on the playground, the memories that stick, the labels we're given, the antics that seemed so pivotal, and we now look back on and laugh.
Vanessa was talking about how once on the monkey bars she accidentally kicked a girl in the face, and some 6th grader ran over to the injured girl and yelled at Vanessa as if she intentionally hurt her.
My sister once did the waterfall trick on the jungle gym and knocked out a loose tooth. The jungle gym was in this large gravel pit. I remember all of my friends running over and searching for her tooth in the gravel because she wanted to put it under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. We scrambled about in the gravel and every 20 seconds someone would shout "I got it!" only to stand up and reveal one of the thousands of white rocks mixed in with the gravel. My sister would run over and yell, "That's not my tooth!" and start crying.
I remember practicing playing "Bloody Mary" where we would do the routine and a tree would be the mirror. We would scream and run away and pretend that we'd seen the urban legend. We'd then take this practice on the playground into the darkened bathrooms at slumber parties where everyone would either chicken out or cry and swear they saw her. Then there were the rare few who claimed nothing happened at all.
There were the early flirtation rituals we would blatantly perform. We would chase the boys that we liked, and once myself and two other girls grabbed a boy's shirt as he ran for dear life. His shirt accidentally ripped off when we did this leaving the poor boy running half naked into the school to escape us. We were all paddled by our one-eyed principal for that act.
Then there was the giant metal slide on the hill above the main playground. It was short and really wide. We could fit about four or five girls side-by-side and would slide down it together in stupid poses we thought would get the boys' attention. One day I convinced everyone to wear their Guinea Sax dresses that billowed out. We lined up on the slide side-by-side and did our poses as our dresses billowed out and showed our panties to the world. We got away with this for a while until the playground teachers caught us once and lectured us about being proper young ladies.
Then there was the traumatic incident that scarred many of our pure hearts. The boys were playing football on the upper hill one day at recess. Mark Rubin was running backwards to catch the football when it happened. He stumbled over something and then we heard someone scream. He stopped and looked at what had tripped him. Somehow when Mark was running backwards, a squirrel was running perpendicular to his path. The two collided and Mark accidentally ran over the small woodland creature. He stood there horrified and visibly upset. We all ran over to observe the scene. There lay a small injured squirrel paralyzed. His breathing staggered and his little puffy squirrel cheeks poofed out as he struggled to inhale. He was very injured. Someone ran to get the playground teacher. The rest of us stood there crying. Mark was crying as well. The playground teacher ran up and came to escort us away from the injured animal.
"Squirrel killer!" shouted one of the kids that had gathered.
"Yah! Squirrel killer!" joined another pointing at Mark.
The playground teacher hushed them and reiterated it was an accident and not his fault. Mark cried harder at the unfair label he'd been given. It was horrible. We later learned that the janitor had been sent to the hill to put the suffering squirrel out of his misery with a shovel, which made us all so sad. Mark was given dirty looks by some, and comforted by others. I remember some of us girls going and picking dandelions and putting them on the squirrel's final resting spot. It took a long time for Mark's squirrel killer title to be lost in the sea of impending puberty.
It's funny the things we remember from the days on the playground and how much they prepared us for life, yet we never knew it. The accidents where we are unjustly accused of wrongdoings; the camaraderie that can happen when minor tragedies strike and even when we try to fix it incorrectly, we can still stick together and help however we can; the preparations we make to face fears and the reality of facing the situation and sometimes seeing we had reason to be afraid, and other times realizing we were scared over nothing; realizing that the one we're after was not right for us and having repercussions for going after them; learning the boundaries of how much to reveal to the ones we're attracted to and trying to push those boundaries when no one is looking; and the labels that we're given in situations beyond our control and realizing who your true friends are when the shit hits the fan, seeing who will stand by your side and comfort you and who will point their finger at you and call you a squirrel killer or any other label.
Funny that we look back and laugh and just simplify the little stories we share. We take most of the lessons we learned from tragic events or relationships. We rarely look at the little things and see how these shaped us and molded us into the adults we've become. And when I think back on these things, it reminds me to stop judging, still comfort, still laugh, and open my mind and explore and push the boundaries of the grown-up version of the playground.
