Monkey Bars

    I figure I probably owe a lot of the physical health I have had during my life, to having access to monkey bars in my  childhood.  As a child we would hang right-side up and upside down, twirl, and do chin-ups on the monkey bars that we had in our yard.  Besides the occasional swings that hung from trees, monkey bars were the only constructed playground equipment we had access to.

    I learned feats like “skinning the cat”, hanging upside down by the back of my heels, and other maneuvers that I don’t know the name of.  It made our muscles strong and gave us coordination.  

    When I began teaching at Silvacan Elementary, the one-room school at Takla Lake in BC, there was was no playground or playground equipment.  There was really not much for the kids that lived in camp to do, so in my free time I bummed some lumber and metal pipe off of the saw mill camp where the school was located, and built a set of monkey bars so that my students could put their muscles to work.  The photo shows the kids in action on the bars.

    Now days such things are probably considered “Too dangerous” for kids to play on.  I am thankful that during my youth, we were allowed, and benefited, from a little danger in our play.

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