Speaking Turtle's Cafe

A Day At The Playground

This is not a complaint, just an observation. 

The good old playground. A training ground for the social dynamics of society. Gone are the days of metal monkey bars and coarse, wooden climb toys. They've been replaced with sturdy, padded, plastic, sanded wood, and polished metal equipment. Much safer and more attractive. However, little else about the playground has changed, as my mother learned the other day while taking my son to the local playground, one of my son's favorite play areas.

 Now, I've gotten used to meeting and interesting range of people at the playground, a range of parents from various backgrounds. Occassionally, you will run into the folks who forget that people who are... shall we say, different then they are also bring their kids to the playgrounds and the experiences have been memorable. I remember one time overhearing a woman say to another one, motioning to my son and I as well as another different person, "I don't know why they have to come here." Without missing a beat, I spun around and explained that my folks have been here for 12,000 years and this area has been a playground for most of us for at least the last 10 years. Another interesting encounter was the ubiquitous presumptuous liberal. I offer the following account. My son was two at the time. He and another couple of kids were playing with a couple of buckets and shovels left in the sand. The little boy who I guess they belonged to appeared and protested, until his mother arrived. The other parents (both appeared to be caucasian) and I gathered up out children. However, the little boy's mother felt compleeled to address me and advise me as to where I might be able to find some low-cost sand toys for my son. I thanked her and informed her that he had sand toys and played with these because he's being raised to share. I also offered her one of his buckets from my trunk as her son's seemed to be in pretty bad shape.

The dynamics of the playground were far from unfamiliar to my mother as 20+ years ago, she had the experience of dealing with the old Mashpee Recreation Department who's director seemed bent on marginalizing the kids of color in town from many of the social activities of the summer (family cookouts, sandcastle competitions, fishing derby's, etc.). It seemed that she would post one time for the event, then change the time and call most of the other parents. A couple of parents who semeed hip to what was happening took to calling my mother when she was notified of a time change, much to the chagrin of the director who would be obviously surprised to see us arrive at the new time.

Yesterdays trip was not too far removed as she noted other folks speaking to each other, but avoiding eye contact with her all together. The piece de resistence, however, came when a bus load of kids. As the kids got off the bus she noted that about half of them were kids of color. Like clock-work, she observed the parents grab up their kids and flee the playground as if a sudden storm had arrived. Now, normally, one might think that it was the arrival of a bus load of kids that would cause the flight, however, the flight didn't occur until the passengers of the bus were in the playground and it could be seen that a number of them were different. Hmmm

Ahhh, yes. The good old playground.