Enter Newmarket, New Hampshire.
We first lived in a duplex with some friends of my parents. The guy was named T.O. and I can't remember what his wife's name was. They were both very nice to us kids. It was halfway up a hill in the middle of town. Church Street, if you ever go there. At the bottom of Church Street was, suprise, a church. Between the church and my house were a parking lot (where I learned to ride my bike, but never actually rode one without training wheels until a couple years later) and a small building that may have been an apartment complex. If it was, in one of the ground floor apartments lived our friends Jaime and Joseph. Fletcher and I visited them a lot, and they visited us. Our mothers would swap turns babysitting us. One night while they were over playing with us, Jaime had an epileptic seizure. (Jaime is the RA on the 4th floor of my dorm now). It was very frightening. Across the street from us was an empty dirt space that was used as a parking lot. At the other side of that was a large house where a Laotian family lived. Newmarket had a very high Laotian population. My mother would baby-sit the little boy that lived there. I think his name was Ricky.
Newmarket was a very small town, but I was an even smaller child, so it seemed very very large. Near and behind the church were the park and Lamprey River (named such for the lamprey eels that lived in it. I only saw these once, and they were dead and on the ground after the river flooded one time). Geese lived on the river, and we would frequently make trips down the hill to the park with bread for the geese. Once in a while, there would be swans. Swans are very beautiful creatures, but also very aggressive and dangerous. I was trying to feed one once that was floating a bit offshore and a man warned me not to, because it would attack and me and try to drown me. The geese never liked the swans.
Nearby the park, along the river, was a place called Joyce's. Joyce's made the best damn pancakes you'll ever have. Blueberry, Apple, Chocolate, with whip cream, with nuts, with natural maple syrup. Whatever it was, they had it, and it was amazing. Breakfast at Joyce's was a special treat. Also along the river, and one of Newmarket's claims to fame, were these large large mills. I believe they made something that wasn't paper.
I started elementary school while in that house. I'll save elementary school for another installment. I also moved into different houses twice while in Newmarket, but that is also another entry. For right now, I'd like to discuss the most important aspect of Newmarket, New Hampshire to me, at that time in my life:
The Playground.The playground at the Newmarket Elementary School was a phenomenon of which I had never seen, and may never see again. Even to this day, looking back on it, it was the fucking coolest playground to have ever been built. Let me break it down for you.
The Whale - It was a slide, it was a swing set, it was a jungle gym. It was a gigantic wooden construction that was a whale. Inside it's head area, was a little space. The ramp started there, then went back at a slight incline to the tail. It then turned and came back to the top of the head. At the top of the head, was the slide. A metal three-kid-wide slide that was the Whale's mouth. The top of his mouth was wooden, and he had rubber eyes. The edges of everything dangerous was covered with this soft red-pink rubber. The tail of the whale were too rope swings, made of the same soft rubber. There were tires to stand on, huge tires. Branching off from the head were two tire swings. At the very tip of the tail was a small place you could stand and there was one of those long chains with round handholds every two or three feet and you could swing like a monkey from cross it to the....
Tire Pyramid - It was exactly what it sounds like. A bunch of tires, somehow connected to make a pyramid, it was very high. Inside there was an extra large tire suspended in the middle, like a second story. I loved that thing. I can't remember exactly how tall it was, but it must have been as tall as a regular classroom, if not more. And right nearby it was ...
Random Tire and Wood Constructions - These were giant tractor tires half-buried in the sand forming multiple contructions to play on. One was just a row of these tires you could crawl through like tunnel. Another was the tires arranged like a chair and a wood platform for the seat. There were balance beams (not off the ground) of wood and rubber and tire outlining the perimeter of the playground, making it possible to cross from the whale to the other side of the playground, where rested the...
Castle - It was a exactly that. A castle of wood with rubber lining. It had a ground floor, stairs to the top floor, where there were rubber poles to slide down on. There was a courtyard in the back, surrounded by benches of wood and tire. It was the site for many imagination games and make-believe stories. Behind it were the woods, where we would also play (within sight range of the teacher) and when it snowed we'd slide down a semi-hill that was there. The Castle was really like a castle, and it's kingdom was the playground. It ruled over the pyramid, whale, and...
Swing-Set - Since the playground designers really dug the whole tire-rubber-wood scheme, the swing set was just that. The seats were rubber, the frame wood and tall. One of the swings was actually this failed prototype of a swing made by cutting away part of a tire so I child could sit in it and swing. It was great. We'd have contests, swinging and jumping off them. I loved swinging more than any part of the playground. The swings were me. I'd get as high as I could and jump, and not worry about landing, because the ground was covered in soft, beautiful...
Sand - No mulch, no wood chips, no asphault. Sand. The playground was perfect because it was just one giant sandbox. No one got hurt. It was always warm. It was brilliant.
I grew up on that playground.
It's all gone now. Replaced with plastic, steel and mulch.
