Swing Sets- little magic carpet rides for children
Even before we are born, our bodies learn the comfort and excitement of perpetual motion. Though we are not aware of it, I am sure the long car rides we experience from inside the womb are soothing to a certain extent. As infants, we are constantly being rocked back and forth in an effort to calm our little nerves. Jumpers, bouncers, rockers and swings seem to be in the name of each and every device geared toward infants and toddlers. As soon as we can talk we ask for horses and ponies (real and wooden), tricycles and bicycles, skate and trampolines. Anything that takes us farther from walking and closer to flying will do the trick. Most schools and neighborhood parks are equipped with Swing Sets so it is not necessary to bother your parents (or Santa for that matter) for something that we could walk a couple blocks to enjoy and would inevitably be forced to share with other children anyway.
Before learning to pump your legs, time on the Swing Set was limited to the patience and endurance of your parent or guardian or whoever happened to be doing all the pushing at that time. And one could only fly as high as the pusher was willing to push. Once you learned to kick out those legs and lean back just so, you could propel yourself to the heavens, or so it seemed. I can remember being a kid and swinging for hours, testing the limits of the chain links and the metal frame. Fly too high and there would be slack in the chain and the descent would not be nearly as smooth as the ride up. Once swinging in a straight line gets monotonous, then we tried twisting and moving side to side as we pumped, which made for quite a hazardous ride on the Swing Set. One solid collision with the pole was enough to set most of us sane children back on the right track. Others would continue their daredevil swinging until a broken bone or other painful setback would ground them a give them some time to think about safety.
