Ah tis the season for classic yard toy memories to come back and haunt us from the past with painful reminders of scars and wounded egos of our own or our parents ass-hattery. I love summer, absolutely love it for the fact the sun brings out the stupid in all of us. I remember so many toys in fact my family had us play on that is either outlawed or they do not make anymore for safety reasons, these in fact are some of my favorite memories to bring up since there is not one person out there who cannot relate.
One of my fondest memories was at my grandmas, all us young cousins hanging out, the adults drinking beer or gin and tonics in a tiny mining town, gave us yard darts. I may have spoke about this before but I'll do it again since it relates to summer stoopid syndrome (SSS). We were shoved outside to play with the lethal objects and told to throw them into circles on the lawn while others stood around said circles thinking they will magically go into the target area. Thanks family!!!! As one of the younger ones you know it ended in the older kids using us for target practice and ripping through locked screen doors to escape the bastard kin I have to claim as blood.
Lets not forget the hot metal action that spent all day searing with those translucent heat waves quivering above the shining steel objects being glazed in the sun. You know exactly what I'm talking about, those five story power slides that had one inch sides and nothing but gleaming metal glaring at you as your father says stop being a pussy and play damn it I have to get the briquettes going. To the people that developed those and thought they were genius, I want to also send you my hospital bills and also figure out a billing system on damages from the layers of flesh grilled onto the hot-plate-o-fun!!!
Merry go rounds, also metal, usually diamond plated, fun when its kids of equal strength. However, there was always that big kid or semi stumble drunk parent that wanted to see you go as fast as possible just to see someone fly. Myself I would stay toward the center, my brother not so much. I remember times when we would get that burner spinning so fast one of our neighborhood friends actually was sideways hanging on crying until his sweaty palms could not hang on any longer and he flew. Of course no one helped him we were playing and damn it it's not our fault, again I want to blame the slide people which I'm pretty sure after developing those "park equipment toys" had huge stock in the emergency care system across the nation.
Of course as shown at top there is the staple summer stoopid creator for all ages, the slip-n-slide. The older we get they turn more into huge sprawls of plastic laid out down massive hills or off of ramps going into lakes, pools, you name it sufferers of SSS thought of it. My favorite is assuming the water is actually all over the damn thing, with improper watering technique and the fail of realizing the hot vapor action from sun on plastic I love that 200 yard power run to find yourself come to a screeching halt and roll onto the grass or further down into where the water actually pooled in a dip on the slide. I am pretty sure my knees and elbows have scar tissue from years of self torture and learned childhood experiences.There are so many old school toys that we all could look back on and say what the hell were we thinking as we recall the terror and treacherous meanderings we somehow survived!!! Please feel free to share your SSS experiences, or even better tell us blogtards your plans for this season!!!!
