Cold Play

Cold Play, originally uploaded by Bearded Jon.

Every kid anywhere in the world will tell you that nothing beats recess on a well equiped playground. Any kid in Alaska will tell you that it sucks getting cold on said well equiped playground.

I spent years on the playgrounds in Valdez as a kid. I remember all the time spent playing King of the Hill, even with the kid with the broken arm. I remember the snow being piled so high that the swings had to be swung over the top rail to shorten them just to swing and you had to almost duck to get under that top rail because the chains had been shortened so much.

On the park strip in Valdez we had a two story rocket shaped spiral slide. If we weren't sliding down it into the inevitable slab of ice that formed at the bottom then we were climbing up it, our own personal Everest. The bigger kids would scale the exterior while the smaller kids would slide down. Many a day I spent morning, lunch and afternoon recess on that slide and many off those days, when I hadn't worn snow pants, my ass was frozen but I don't ever remember complaining about it.