The Sanctity of Childhood

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A chain link fence with tired wooden supports was the only thing left guarding the sanctity of my childhood. As I neared the flimsy gate facing Maria Drive, phantom memories of young students laughing and playing flooded back to me. They ran, hopped, swung, laughed, cheered. I finally reached the gate and unlatched the clamp holding it shut. As I walked through the gate and off the sidewalk and onto the blacktop and beneath the drooping basketball hoops another wave of memories crashed through my head. I could suddenly smell the unnatural rubber of vibrant orange, black, and red playground balls. I could hear the rattling of chains attached to swings, attached to masses of steel, attached to flying buttresses that dug into freshly laid pine mulch. The afternoon sun pierced through lulling clouds and reflected off a set of monkey bars in the play area. The silvery iron bars had been worn down by many hands to reveal a rich brown color that gave them character. The play structure was just as I had remembered it: the bars were cool to the touch and bore a smooth, yet deceivingly grippy texture. Looking over the black top, I could see familiar patterns of white and yellow: four square boxes, hopskotch lanes, and a blown up map of the United States. As a whole, the landscape of the playground had remained largely unchanged since my days at Meadow Elementary School.
After fussing over the pine bark that had magically found its way into my shoes, I crossed the blacktop between two handboard courts and their beige walls. I had spent much time at these courts, and this was where I had learned many of my values. Patience, respect, kindness--the courts were almost sacred to the students. It’s hard not to imagine the dull thud and then “boing” of rubber balls being bounced off their surfaces when I walk by. I eventually make my way to the track and observe the old and new. The track, like the playground, was familiar. A quarter-mile loop of deep red dirt contrasted sharply with fresh-cut, verdant grass. On one end, the wind echoed through the ruins of a softball and kickball field, where scores of students and teachers once had lined up to play friendly games against each other. On the opposite end, a new planter box held school-grown vegetables and fruits. This was a new addition, but a welcome one nonetheless. The center of the track was the jewel though. To the ordinary person, it looked like any vacant space. To me, I could imagine the splendor of field days past. The attractions celebrating the closing of a school year were lined up--tug-o-war and egg toss, musical chairs and jelly bean races, rainbow parachutes and milk bottle toss--and eager students packed the lines and waited with hardly contained patience. Then there was the food and Read Across America Day. Hotdogs, hamburgers, fruit, chips, juice, cookies, and a color wheel of Otter Pops were provided to students that hungered for food as much as education. Students constantly filled this space, whether it be for track and field or picnics and games.
As I walked somberly off the track and through the rest of the yard, I felt nostalgic. I spent another forty minutes there, swinging on the swing sets, shooting hoops, and spiking a red rubber ball against the handboards, trying to relive some of my childhood. It had been years since I had experienced the mystifying force of Meadow School. My contact with the playground served to revitalize my thoughts of the place. Many of my afternoons were spent hanging around the school with my mother, who is a teacher, and I do not regret it now. At one point, I thought it was a waste of time to stay after school while my mother graded papers and prepared lesson plans, but now I see its significance. It is next to impossible to relive this time period, but it’s nice to take a look back at the worry-free days.
The playgrounds that were once filled with my jovial peers are void of people, but I can still feel their presence. The shouts and cries that once filled the blacktop are gone, but I can still hear their echoes. The smell of rubber and pine wood under the blazing afternoon sun is missing, but I can still catch the scent on the wind in my memories. The play structures around me feel distant and unreachable, but I can still swing from them. This was Meadow Elementary School, and it will always be my childhood sanctuary.

Mitchell B.