THE SWING SET

One of our favorite things to do as a child was to swing on the swing set.  My mom and dad got the set when my oldest brother was a toddler.  It was set up close to the front door, (on the south side of the house) then eventually moved away from the house on the south side of the cellar.  Then it was moved to under the big maple tree on the north side of the house.  That is where it is now located. Yes, the very same one.  The swings have been changed, and the teeter totter is now a plastic one, but the frame is the very same one.

There were only two metal swings and a metal teeter totter.  If there was ever a slide connected to it, I do not remember it.  The swings were a lime green color.  I don't know what color the teeter totter was originally because all I can remember is the faded gray color and the paint being worn off.

I spent hours on the swing set.  This was before we had to work in the fields.  I would sing and swing for hours.  I am sure I made up many a song.

I remember one accident with the teeter totter.  I was standing on the ground and pushing the teeter totter as high as I could get it to go.  It came back and somehow I missed catching it.  It hit me square in the eyebrow.  I did not have to have stitches, but I still have a little scar. Another thing you had to be careful about was where you put your hands on the teeter totter.  You could not put them on the horizontal bars. If you did, and you were to swing really high, those two bars would come together and smash your fingers.  We all did that on occasion.

Often my brothers and I would swing together.  We made up a game of swinging and jumping.  We would swing as high as we could and then see who could jump farther.  We would take a stick and mark where our heels hit the dirt.  Then we would attempt to jump farther than that mark.

Another thing we did was to swing and look at the clouds and try to find different formations somewhat similar to the ones pictured here. We would watch the cloud formations change from one thing to another.  We would watch the thunderstorms come in and watch the lightning storms in the distance.


The metal bar on the A-frame was a great place to sit and to swing from like monkey bars.  We could only do that for a short time because we got too tall, and our feet would touch the ground, preventing us from hanging from the bar.

My children used the swing set when they were young.  The swing set at that time was by the big maple tree on the north side of the house.  I am sure they had their own games they played while swinging. Seems they tried to swing high enough to touch a tree branch of the maple with their feet.

The swing set is still in that location, but the big maple tree is gone.  It got so old and the branches began to die.  Now, my grandchildren play on that same old swing set.  For three generations, that swing set has been loved and has provided many hours of enjoyment.