Beware! The Lava Monster

     I love being outdoors, especially when I was a child.  My imagination ran wild with crazy ideas and thoughts.  I would feel invincible and unstoppable.  When breakfast was over I quickly tossed on shorts and a t-shirt and spend the day outside in our fenced backyard. 

     We had a wonderful swingset with neat accesssories.  On one end was a swinging teeter-totter, followed by a swing.  Then it had a set of rings to swing on followed by another swing.  Just on the other side of that was a swinging bench then a metal slide.  The end of the slide can be raised up and when propped carefully it can be used as a level platform.  There was a small gap then there were a set of monkey bars.  There was a post that stuck out horizontally from each of the four corners of the monkey bars that each supported a swing.  At times we would stretch one of our swings chain links from one end of the monkey bars to the other side.  Creating such a long stretch raised the swing seat up very high but it didn't give much chain slack swing to it.  Nonetheless it was still fun to be sitting up high.  We even had a trapeese bar that we would hook up to another post of the monkey bars. 

     We had a strong tree that created a "V" shape near the base of the trunk.  From one of the posts that stick out you can swing yourself to the "V" of the tree.  In my imagination when I would pass through the "V" of the tree it turned into a porthole to take me to another world, a world of mystery and magic and adventures.  I would have to do some daring stunt in order to claim a lost soul and find my way back to the "V" and return to normal Earth.

     I was amazing at doing tricks on my swingset.  I could flip around using the rings or the trapeeze bar.  I could walk on top of the monkey bars from one side to the other and flip on down to the ground.  There was a bar that hung over the slide and it was nothing for me to twirl over the bar and hear the metal echoing sound of my feet hitting the slide.  I had no fear.  I was in my youth. When I fell I would brush myself off and get back up determined to master the trick I was trying to accomplish. 

     There was one game my sister, brother and I loved playing.  The Lava Monster!  One of us would be the Lava Monster.  Generally, since I was the youngest, I was usually picked to be the Lava Monster.  My other sibilings had to start at one end of the swingset.  Without placing a foot on the groud they had to shimmy their way across the swingset, jump from the slide to the monkeybars and make their way to safe, which was the "V" of the tree.  If a foot were to touch the ground then I was able to tag them and pull them into the lava (off the swingset) and they would become The Lava Monster.  Then it was my turn to skedaddle across.  I can still remember the burn and the blisters on my hand from gripping too hard on the top bar of the swingset making sure I didn't let go. 

     Unfortunally time took its toll and we grew up and moved away leaving behind our swingset and The Lava Monster.  That was a time before video games, before computers and cell phones.  This was a time in history where children relied on their imagination and creativity to pass the time.  Those where the good ol' days of summer.