Oliver and I got a serious chance to take the new Prince St. School playground out for a ride tonight, just before dark. While it’s not as magical as the Elliot River Dream Park, it’s so, so much better than the rusty nail-type playground equipment it replaces as to seem pretty dreamy. The newly-laid sod on the field helps a lot too, although my jury is out on the choice of loose gravel for the “cushion to catch falling children” material — I much prefer the bark mulch in Cornwall, or the space-age bouncey rubber material we encountered in Spain (although it would probably crack and explode in the cold).
Nice to (finally) see a wheelchair accessible piece of play equipment too.
Oddly enough, it seems as once of the pieces is already in the shop for repair — we noticed that one of the wild wavy whales was missing tonight.
We call the playground the “Gary playground” after our friend Gary, who’s just bought a house across the street. Gary is already, I hope, preparing lunchtime menus for Oliver once he calls Prince St. School home.
Kudos to the people who put this project together, in memory of our neighbour on Hensley St. who tragically died last year. It’s a worthy memorial, I think.
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I started volunteering at Prince Street last year. The school in general has hardly changed since I was a young student there. The one thing I had noticed was that the playground had not changed since my days. I’m so glad they finally got a new playground. The other one was older then I. It was downright unsafe looking. I’m happy to see positive changes.
I hope you and Oliver have a great time playing there.
First day of grade four, Mable Matheson stood sternly in front of the entire crop of civic recruits and barked out a series of accomplishments that had contributed to our cornucopia (sp?) of graces and blessings among them was the stoicism (sp? again) of “last years students, all you grade two three four five and six year olds, we owe you all a debt of gratitude for having had to endure the closure of your lawn all spring and summer. Had it not been for the sacrifice of all of you (whew!, I was getting credit and I wasn’t even there!!!) have made so that we can have a beautiful lawn this fall. I trust you will all treat it with considerable care as we look forward to Arbour Day when we’ll all plant a tree (on the south-east side of the playground in a spot almost directly out Lester MacKay’s house — er, back then) to honor your sacrifice”.
I’m not suggesting those were her words exactly, but the militaryesque chant was rather strange to most of our flock of about 135 or 140 I guess.
Anyway, I couldn’t help thinking of an amusing image as I drove past PSS the other day and saw the sod going down. Back then the kids had to wait for seed to grow.
The image: her stomping off the stage in her Salvation Army-issue footware and patented cane-thumps that meant either that she was done, was falling, or really meant that last point so “you had better” remember this or that —Never heard “had better” in my previous alma mater.
I was glad to see the improvements take place, since as a new neighbour, some kids came to my door selling raffle tickets or something like that to raise money for the park — seeing the finished product completed was my only assurance that I hadn’t been taken by scheming youths.