The Window Wells

I was thinking back on my childhood. I was going to do a post on home made gifts I gave in the younger days. I thought about where I used to play and then the memory swept upon me. During the lazy days of summer, we would do our daily chores and then we pretty much just ran the 'hood'. One of my favorite haunts was our school grounds. Then building was ancient and I am sure my grandparents attended that school. It was three very tall stories. It had the coolest fire escape on the west side of the building. There was a large expanse of 'blacktop' with four square, tether ball and hopscotch patterns. Ancient equipment called lovingly to us. We would sail high in the air and yes, we loved to 'bail out'. This was back in the days when they didn't care much about safety (law suits were almost unheard of). The swings were heavy and tall with 'pinchy' chains and a strap seat.
     There were rows of tetter totters, (funny, I can't remember how to spell those). We would pile many children on them and at least one person usually rode the middle.....standing and balancing. For some reason they thought we would like playing inside a large cement pipe. Try playing inside someone's cement pipe. I'll bet you get yelled at. We would climb on those and sit in the cool shade at time. It always smelled bad to me however. I won't say what it reminded me of, but ...I will never get in a cement pipe again.
We were treated to outdoor porcelain water fountains. Great for drinking from and even better to spray your friends with. You would put your finger on the spout and push. We were very accurate with our shots. We would hoist each other up and climb the fire escape occasionally. I always worried that some demonic figure of authority would appear and mete out swift justice on us for that so it was seldom that we climbed up to peek in the classroom windows.
   I loved playing in the window wells. On the west side of the school, we could just walk level and the walk way rose until our eyes were level with a passerby's feet. On the east, there was a large retaining wall and about 10 foot wide and seemed like 10 feet deep. although through grown up eyes, I 'm sure it was at most 3 feet deep. I loved rolling in the grass in the 'trench'. You could get a good run and vault out of the trench. But on the north east side of the school. Covered in bushes and deep with fallen leaves were the ultimate window wells. They had bars around them to prevent someone from accidently falling to the depths. These required a bit of planning to explore. You had to climb the bars, straddle the top and climb over. Then we would hang from the bottom and fall into a whole new world. I must not have been afraid of spiders and worms as I am sure they were infested with critters. It felt so mysterious and thrilling to be in these dark pits. we would usually stay for a few minutes. Then the problem of how to ascend would arise. We had to leave a rescuer topside to pull us up to the bars to get out.
   My childhood was filled with inventing my own games and running wild. I am sure I would have remained a thin athletic person...but along came Gilligans Island!