Recess

     It always amuses me when I ask my kids what happened at school they begin and end by telling me they had recess and lunch.  OK, you had recess and lunch and then came home?  I am not buying it!  I have to literally drag what else they did out of them kicking and screaming.   When I think about it when pressed at that age, I probably would have said the same thing.   Let’s face it; kids live for food and recess.  It is the best part of the day.  It is fact.

         Even if they did enjoy school and learning it would be a rare kid who would actually admit it to an adult and go into elaborate detail.  
 At the elementary school I went to the playground was in a huge dusty field with room to get up a rousing game of no rules soccer or perform a top of your voice recital to the audience of trees that lined the back of the property.  The playground was filled with everything a person could hope for: slides, swings, a teeter totter or two, monkey bars, and a merry go round.  

        One time one of the boys in my class convinced me to try the teeter totter with him.  I had always been a little leery of the teeter totter but didn’t want to look like a big chicken to him.  I bravely got on and for all intents and purposes made it appear I knew exactly what I was doing.  You would have thought I was in a hall of fame somewhere for my expertise of riding teeter totters.  I was the female version of Joe Cool personified.  All was going well until he jumped off sending me crashing to the ground.  My chin slammed against the handle I was holding, HARD.  An explosion of pain engulfed me, my eyes filled with tears, and blood poured from my chin.  If I had been a cartoon, little animated stars would have been swirling over my head.    I began screaming and wailing as only a little girl could do.  Before I knew what hit me, the teacher on recess duty was rushing me into the building to see the nurse.  I got a bandage the size of an elephant’s a$$ for my trouble that day.

        I would like to say that I rushed back out to recess and had the balls to climb right back on the teeter totter.  That would be a lie though.  From then on I walked a wide circle around the teeter totter and never was persuaded to mount one again.  My fear of the infamous teeter totter continues to this day.  Playgrounds can be a wonderful place when you are a kid.  They can also be equally dangerous.  Just last week my son fell off the top of the tallest slide at school plummeting to the ground below.  He received a severe concussion which resulted in swelling to the lining of his brain and an infection which elevated his temperature to fever pitch for days.  To this day, he isn’t quite sure what happened.  If it weren’t for eye witness reports from the teacher on playground duty actually seeing his horrific fall take place I would never know what really truly happened.

      Let’s face it survival on the playground in elementary school can be compared to surviving the jungle where the natives are restless and anything goes.   Somehow a person survives the bumps, scraps, and bruises from the playground.   Even then, when remembering the recesses of the past the times when I left the playground bloody or hurt take precedence over any other memory of the countless games of hopscotch, kick ball, or Chinese jump rope until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.