The Play Structure, My Friend, Is Blowing In The Wind

A well intentioned plan almost becomes a wrongful death claim.

Story written and narrated by: Glenn Vanderkloet

Tunes in this episode:

“Hazlehurst” - Pale Cricket

“The Young and the Restless Theme” - Perry Botkin Jr.

“Pa Pa Power” - Performed by Cat Power/Written by Dead Man’s Bones

The Play Structure, My Friend, is Blowin' in the Wind

With the exception of a few years at a pharmaceutical factory, my mother ran a daycare out of our home for her entire working life. From the time I could walk, there were always other kids around drooling, screaming, and sticking their fingers into light sockets. On one hand, I was never lonely with plenty of companions to choose from, but on the other, having kids around all the time messing with my home and my stuff could be irritating, to put it mildly. There were days when I just wanted to come home from school, grab a snack, and watch TV without the soundtrack of my hyperactive peers filling the air.

This was the 80's and 90's when children's lives were not as valued or as carefully protected as they are today. Caution was thrown to the wind and rules and regulations were something folks in the IRS or military concerned themselves with, not daycare proprietors. For example, we had one bathroom in our house and in the summertime when school was out, there could be as many as 15 children under mom's care, not including myself or my siblings. Illegal certainly, but also unsanitary and likely detrimental to the children’s health. On top of this, my mom did not have any of the certifications or courses that childcare workers need today. She probably thought that the Heimlich Maneuver was some sort of German sex act and probably only knew CPR as The Canadian Pacific Railway. Am I outing my mom here? Look, it was a different time.

To be fair, my mom did have some rules, but not the ones you'd think. For example, if a kid was being noisy during The Young and the Restless, they would find themselves outside indefinitely, and no, that rule didn't change in the middle of a Canadian winter. Additionally, if a kid objected to a fourth day in a row of Chef Boyardee and hot dogs, they would learn what a week without lunch tasted like. Now, I don't want to paint too grim of a picture here. My mom had it in her to be an exceptionally caring person who really did love children, but I also don't want to discount her natural flair for tyranny.

Despite the lack of rules, or maybe because of them, the kids' mom babysat and I had a lot of fun over the years. One of our favourite games was something we called “dinky car wars.” We would each pick a piece of furniture to use as a protective shield, and at the count of three, rise up and throw Hot Wheels at each other's heads. There was some blood and a lot of tears, but most importantly, we made lasting memories. We also caught frogs together, played baseball and hockey, hunted squirrels and other small prey with wooden spears, and spent countless hours in the rec room, wrestling, playing board games, and generally just annoying each other. We were extremely proficient at that last one.

Fortunately for her, mom didn't have to shoulder the babysitting burden all alone. My dad was a factory employee and worked long hours but he would still support mom with whatever she needed for her childcare business. This included but was not limited to, keeping the cupboards full of food, maintaining the house and property, and ensuring there were no hazards or pitfalls around in an attempt to ward off potential litigation. Also, when the mood struck, dad would take it upon himself to do something a little extra. He'd bring home a couple dozen donuts or he'd give some of the older children rides on his antique tractor. 

One summer, on a week's vacation from work and presumably feeling extra generous, dad decided that he'd buy some lumber and build a play structure for the kids. For some context, my dad could be described as a lot of things. Pack-a-day smoker, political junkie, amateur historian, baseball savant, loyal Levis customer, and purchaser of generic food brands, but no one ever accused him of being a proficient builder. That being said, my father never let a lack of knowledge or skill stand in the way of something he wanted to accomplish. There was the time he attempted to build me a batting cage out of scrap wood and chicken wire. I was shocked at how quickly he erected it. I remember standing in our kitchen with him, looking out the patio door at the monstrosity. “You'll be hitting .300 in no time now that you have that beautiful piece of work to practice in,” he said proudly. The next morning, I wandered sleepily into the kitchen to fix myself some cereal. One quick glance out the patio door told me all I needed to know about my dad's handiwork. The batting cage was flattened along with my hopes of a batting title. Light to moderate winds had brought it down while we slept, blissfully unaware.

But I digress. Back to the play structure, and by now, you don't have to be Edgar Cayce to know what's coming. It wasn't an elaborate build by any stretch. Conversely, It was a prototypical design. A playhouse on top with a slide running down from it, and a frame with two swings attached off to the side. After completing the structure in his distinctively rushed style, dad was pleased to receive a positive response from all involved. My mom and the parents of the children she babysat were thrilled to see the kids enjoying a new activity. It was a resounding success and it continued to be for several weeks. Sadly however, nothing lasts forever and that goes double for anything my dad ever built.

The first sign of calamity was subtle. If both swings were in use and the occupants were going at a good clip, one of the structural pillars would lift out of the ground and then fall back into place as the swings levelled out. It got predictably worse from there. It reached a point where if there were three or more children on the structure at once, it would sway back and forth considerably. Add a windy day to the equation and, well, you can guess what might happen.

There was a cold front coming in on the penultimate day that the structure stood. It was late spring and the bus had just dropped a load of us kids off from school in my parents' driveway. We all had our routines. Some went to the sandbox, some started kicking around a soccer ball, and some went for the play structure. As the late afternoon rolled along, clouds started to form and the wind picked up as two little girls were taking turns on the play structure's slide. One of the girls had just reached the top of the structure to take another turn when a particularly violent gust of sustained wind came in and began shaking the structure from pillar to post. At the same time, one of the girl's fathers pulled into the driveway to pick her up and take her home for the day. The father happened to be a volunteer firefighter and when he saw the structure swaying in the wind, he rushed to the scene with a look of horror in his eyes. His daughter, oblivious to the danger she was in and ostensibly quite enjoying the unexpected oscillating motion, held on tight with one hand while laughing and waving at her dad with the other. He arrived at the base of the structure, scampered up the steps to the playhouse, and pulled her down to safety before the worst case scenario could occur. The potential crisis had been averted. The father put his little girl in the car and stomped inside to tear a strip off my father. After getting reamed out, Dad began to rip down the structurally unsound play equipment later that evening, and finished the job the next day. 

As Merle Haggard once sang, “Mama Tried.” She did, and my father did too. They both put a lot of effort into providing a safe and fun environment for the kids even if the end result didn't always reflect that. It’s not an easy task managing the chaos that multiple children, high on overly processed foods, bring to an ill-equipped environment. After more than 30 years of helping to raise other people's kids, mom stopped adding Chef Boyardee to the grocery list and with some sense of relief I’m sure, left the babysitting profession behind for good. As for myself, I finally got a break from a house full of kids when mom retired but it came only a year or two before I moved out. Still, I wouldn't have traded those years of bedlam for a perpetually silent house and even now, I’d gladly take the racket kids can make over listening to an uninterrupted Victor Newman temper tantrum, even if mom may disagree.