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 my father hung from trees, monkey bars were the only constructed playground equipment we had access to in our yard.

        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 in the one-room school in a remote lumber mill camp in BC, there was no playground or playground equipment for my students to play on.  At recess or during the time when they weren’t in school, there really wasn’t much for the kids that lived in camp to do, so in my free time I bummed some lumber and metal pipe from the 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 as monkey bars 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.

        I have a inversion table in my room and still periodically use it to hang upside down.  While my old body is hanging upside down, I often think about all those physical maneuvers we used to do on the monkey bars as a kid.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca