by Wesley Harris
There was a time when the most important part of the school day didn’t happen in the classroom.
It happened outside—on packed dirt playgrounds, under metal monkey bars that roasted in the midday sun and on equipment that today might never pass inspection.
Recess in the 1950s and 1960s was an experience like none other. The playground was where we learned how to get along—or else. I saw it firsthand as a student at Ruston Elementary School.
Playground equipment looked simple but it could be intimidating. Swings soared high enough to make you think you might touch the sky. See-saws—teeter-totters to some—demanded balance and timing. Merry-go-rounds spun faster and faster as children ran alongside and leapt aboard. Monkey bars tested strength and nerve, and falling off came with the territory.
Rules were few. Fights broke out without warning and ended just as quickly. Teachers kept their distance, watching from the edges rather than stepping in.
Children made their own games. Some followed loose rules, but many did not. “Kill the man with the ball,” as we called it, relied more on survival than structure—whoever held the ball became the target. The game turned loud, chaotic, and, by today’s standards, probably unthinkable.
Other contests moved slower but were no less competitive. A game of marbles could grow intense, with prized shooters and carefully guarded collections on the line. Winning mattered because losing meant walking away empty-handed.
Imagination filled in everything else.
Forts built of pine straw and whatever else we could find became battlegrounds. We chose sides, claimed territory, and for a time, those makeshift strongholds felt as real as anything in a history book.
Boys and girls went their separate ways.
While the boys ran, climbed, and competed, girls gathered nearby for their own diversions. Chinese jump ropes stretched between ankles as chants guided each round, and hand-clapping games followed rhythms passed from one group to the next.
Oh, there were injuries.
One wrong step could leave you bruised or worse. See-saws and swings punished careless play, but falls from the monkey bars probably caused the most damage. I remember one classmate breaking his collarbone.
But the merry-go-round may have been the most dangerous of all.
The bigger boys pushed while everyone else held on like their lives depended on it. The spinning force could sling you off like a shot.
The scariest moment came the day Mike crawled underneath the spinning platform. Why, I don’t know.
The thing spun faster and faster until something gave way. The ball bearings came loose, and the platform dropped with a bang.
For a moment, I thought Mike was dead.
Then he started screaming.
Mike was tough, but fear had him now. I dropped to my knees and looked underneath as he yelled for help. A couple of us grabbed his legs and pulled while others tried to lift the platform.
Teachers came running.
Somehow, Mike survived. A large rock beneath the merry-go-round—just bigger than Mike’s head—caught the weight of the falling platform and kept it from crushing him.
It was a close call none of us ever forgot.
Danger didn’t stop at the playground equipment. One day, a kid taking practice swings caught another in the head with a bat—another reminder that supervision, as we know it today, didn’t always exist.
Playgrounds have changed. Bare dirt has given way to padded surfaces designed to soften falls. Equipment sits lower, guarded by rails and safety features. Merry-go-rounds like the ones we knew have disappeared, and towering metal structures have been replaced with safer, standardized designs.
Today’s playgrounds are safer by every measure. But they are also different.
Back then, swings reached for the sky, games took shape on the spot, and no one knew exactly what might happen next. Recess felt less controlled, more unpredictable—and sometimes a little dangerous.
It was a different kind of growing up.
You held on tight, took your chances, and learned how to get back up.
