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The Playground Bill of Rights
I received an e-mail from a loyal The Poop reader who recently had a distressing moment at the playground. The mother of an almost 2-year-old and 3-month-old watched as her trip to the park turned into a trailer for "Piranha 3D." Her e-mail reads, in part ...
allmoviephoto.com
Article I: Protection from the Playground Russell Crowe.
My older son was bitten by a boy about his same age, while I was a few yards away, on a bench, feeding my little baby. My son shrieked, and I ran over, saw a wet mark on his shirtsleeve ... and saw *individual teeth marks* (yes, like a shark) on his little arm, when I peeked down through his collar. The skin was broken, but not really bleeding... and I just felt miserable.
The biter's grandma rushed over, apologized, etc., and I spent 99 percent of my energy comforting my son... and the other 1 percent saying anything except "it's OK" to the grandma ... because, to me ... it's not.
I'm still struggling to come up with a "correct" response (for next time -- bah!)... and wonder if you/your readers have any thoughts. ... Now, watch -- next time, it'll be *my* son's teeth marks on a stranger's bicep.
Which brings us to the Playground Bill of Rights. Below is a short document that was established to cover the basic rights of a parent and child in a playground situation, with some added advice for this mother. Your biting incident advice and/or suggestions for additional articles in the comments ...
(This may be too much to ask on a Friday -- the most strife-filled commenting day of the week -- but let's try to aim for constructive dialogue and not get in a big fight. (See Article III.) I'll buy everyone an ice cream sandwich if we get through the day without a single racist remark in the comments.)
Read More 'The Playground Bill of Rights' »| August 20 2010 at 09:32 AM
Children's Fairyland and Bruce "Skipper" Sedley
One goal of The Poop is to revisit and recover moments of Bay Area nostalgia that aren't readily available with a Google search. When I see Internet chatter asking "Whatever happened to ..." concerning a local personality or event from yesteryear, I consider it my job to provide an answer. Arguably the greatest accomplishment of this blog was tracking down Pat McCormick for an interview, and then acting as a middleman to get Charley and Humphrey on YouTube.
sedleyandfriends.com
Bruce Sedley with King Fuddle.
Our biggest shortcoming is leaving out local celebrities whose popularity peaked before the 1970s. This makes sense to our target audience (I'm 39, and I'd guess the typical The Poop reader is between 25 and 50), but not when you look at the Bay Area television landscape. From "Captain Satellite" to the first seasons of "Romper Room," there was a wealth of local programming for children in the 1950s and 60s.
Arguably the name I hear the most from readers is Bruce Sedley, who was the star of "Skipper Sedley" and other kid shows from before I was born. His name came up (again) when I wrote this Children's Fairyland article in the Chronicle last week. Sedley was a tireless promoter of the amusement park, and designed the Fairyland magic key -- which still works in the talking storybook boxes more than 50 years later. Fairyland's C.J. Hirschfield told me that Sedley went on to innovate the magnetic locks used by hotels, but I honestly didn't even know if he was still around when I wrote the story.
Good news ... Read More 'Children's Fairyland and Bruce "Skipper" Sedley' »
| July 28 2010 at 11:20 AM
Best playgrounds in the Bay Area
I had a great time talking about Broke Guy Day Care and other local free stuff on KFOG last week -- which was followed by an elevator trip upstairs in the Cumulus Radio building and five minutes on KNBR's Morning Show. There are few things I enjoy more about my job than appearing on radio stations that I grew up listening to. And I like the positive vibe of both of those shows a lot.
koretfoundation.org
Concrete slides at Koret Children's Quarter.
As the KFOG morning crew took calls from listeners -- and the great Randall Museum was the first suggestion -- I was surprised how many of the kid-friendly freebies that we discussed were in San Francisco. The idea that San Francisco isn't a good place to raise children seems like more and more of a myth.
Take playgrounds. I've traveled to dozens of different playgrounds in the Bay Area for The Poop and just to try something new with the kids, and close to half of the best ones have been in San Francisco. We've written extensively about Koret Children's Quarter -- the site of out last Poop fan meet-up -- but that's only one of several spectacular parks in the city/county limits. Some of these parks have had recent resurrections, with fundraising and other help from people in the neighborhoods.
Below are my five favorite Bay Area playgrounds. I disqualified any playground that charged even a nominal entrance fee (Children's Wonderland in Vallejo would have been No. 2), although parking fees weren't factored in. Run-down bathrooms were a negative. Nice views, big trees, proximity to a carousel and concrete slides were positives. Oak Meadow Park Playground in Los Gatos almost made the list just for having a decommissioned jet plane for kids to play on.
To be fair, I rarely go to parks in Marin or Contra Costa County, so I'm relying on loyal readers to fill in the blanks.
Your choice in the comments ... Read More 'Best playgrounds in the Bay Area' »
| March 29 2010 at 06:04 AM
Spaceship park (and other kid-named landmarks)
Having the Poop Meet-Up at the Children's Playground in Golden Gate Park reminds me of what my kids used to call that place. My son dubbed it the Triangle Park, because of the pink metal triangles on the play structure. To a 3-year-old, that was the most memorable aspect of the environment, more distinctive than the carousel or the cement slides, which he also enjoyed there.
playgrounddesigns.blogspot.com
Before there was a Poop blog, it was Triangle Park.
He was always renaming things. Or, come to think of it, the name sometimes came from us. When we would propose an outing, if we said "the playground in Golden Gate Park," that geographical reference meant nothing to him. So we'd try to narrow it down: "You know, the one with the carousel." But that was confusing, because Tilden Park also has a carousel. Struggling to clarify and jog his memory, we'd say, "You know, the one with the big climbing structure with the triangles on it?" And he'd have a flash of recognition and say, "Oh ... you mean the Triangle Park! Yeah, I want to go!"
Sometimes we'd come up with our own names because a park didn't have a discernable name or lacked visible signage. In those cases, the most significant, kid-attractive monument provoked a homegrown label. In our neighborhood, there were two.
We live on the east side of Lake Merritt, in Oakland, where, by the Lakeview Branch Library, there is a children's playground that was remodeled a few years ago. But when my kids were little, it was funky and had little more than a set of swings and a giant metal space ship in the center that kids could climb on.
It looked like something out of a '50s sci-fi movie, topped by two spherical shapes that met like convex hamburger bun halves, leaving an opening that kids could crawl into. Once inside, you could shout and hear your voice echo against the metal to thrilling effect. There was almost no shade at this playground (great planning, '50s folk!), so going inside the spaceship was a great way to get out of the sun. Naturally, we called this local treasure the Spaceship Park. Read More 'Spaceship park (and other kid-named landmarks)' »
| October 02 2009 at 07:26 AM
Dolores Park playground gets a makeover
How exciting to read that one of San Francisco's oldest -- and most treacherous -- parks is in for a multi-million dollar revamping in the next year or so, adding a monster kid space that will rival the recently renovated children's playground in Golden Gate Park.
missiondolorespark.com
It's like Dolores Park just challenged Golden Gate Park to a dance off.
It appears there will be some type of water and boat feature, a giant climbing hill, maybe some concrete slides, swings, suspension bridges and seemingly endless amounts of natural space to just run and dig and act like a kid. Sounds like planning is still under way, but if the finished product resembles anything like this drawing, Dolores Park goers are in for a treat.
According to a story in Thursday's Chronicle, a deal was struck to use private and public money to get the job done and this could serve as a model for future collabor ... zzzzzzzzz.
The point is, this park could be badass. But let's hope there's room for older kids, too. Read More 'Dolores Park playground gets a makeover' »
| April 03 2009 at 08:08 AM
Red Rover disasters ...
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Thanks for the widespread support of my plan/life's work to make the playground game Red Rover the number one sport in America. Based on the amount of interest, I suspect we'll also have a companion post about Steal the Bacon.
Several people sent me YouTube videos like the one above, which displays the controversial clothesline Red Rover move, and the horrible results. This is only slightly less disturbing than the time Meredith Vieira tried to ice skate on the "Today" show with Will Ferrell, so don't play the video when your kids are around. Read More 'Red Rover disasters ...' »
| March 29 2009 at 02:06 PM
Bring back Red Rover!
People sometime ask me what I'll do if this whole journalism thing doesn't work out. My answer is simple: I'm going on a one-man mission to bring back Red Rover.
I'm thinking about professional leagues. A television program where washed-up child actors and former reality show stars play Red Rover for cash. Maybe work as a lobbyist: I won't stop until Sasha and Malia -- or preferably Barack and Michelle -- are playing Red Rover on the White House lawn. (Hopefully trampling their vegetable garden that Alice Waters won't stop talking about. Read my new blog, imtiredofhearingaboutalicewaters.com, where I'll tell you how to pave over your sustainable organic farm using Twinkies as bricks.)
rit.edu
Red Rover: America's new pastime.
You may have played Red Rover by a different name. British Bulldogs was another popular alias. In my elementary school playground, we played Red Rover during P.E. class nearly every week.
The rules are simple and violent, which are the biggest selling points. People on two sides of a field (or if you're hard-core, a blacktop) join hands in a line, facing each other, at a distance of maybe 50 feet. They choose a member of the opposing team, by chanting "Red Rover, Red Rover send Mary right over." Mary then runs headlong into two of the linked arms on the opposing line. If she fails to break the chain, she's assimilated into that group. If she breaks the chain, she chooses one of the broken "links" to join her group. (It goes without saying that the orthopedic surgeon lobby probably won't be joining my campaign to bring back Red Rover.)
You can use the comments to write down what playground game you think deserves a comeback. But you'll be wrong. Red Rover is on top of the list. Below are some reasons ... Read More 'Bring back Red Rover!' »
| March 27 2009 at 08:08 AM
The Poop playground recommendations ...
For those who missed it in today's Pink section, my colleague Reyhan Harmanci wrote an informative article about the new Outdoor Exploratorium exhibits in San Francisco's Fort Mason and Marina District. She also took some of our suggestions from last week for the best playgrounds in the Bay Area and turned it into this side story -- complete with a nice Capri Sun reference, and quotes from Poop commenters.
And as of 3 p.m., the SFGate comments section under Reyhan's article had several other good playground recommendations -- without a single person writing in about how we're destroying the city with our breeder mentality!
| March 15 2009 at 08:10 AM
Best playgrounds in the Bay Area
My colleague Reyhan Harmanci is working on some Exploratorium-related stories for an upcoming Sunday Datebook edition, and is hoping to write a side story about the best Bay Area playgrounds. I was going to give her my list of favorites, but thought it would be more democratic to open it up to The Poop readers.
Paul Chinn/Chronicle
More danger = more fun!
I haven't lived anywhere else since having children, but I think we have it pretty good in the Bay Area. It seems as if there are new playgrounds being built or refurbished all the time, and a lot of the old ones are unique and interesting. We also seem to have a lot of non-profits focused on kids. I was excited to take my son by the Yerba Buena Gardens Playground two blocks from my San Francisco workplace last month -- and there were Zeum employees setting up activities for the kids.
To be fair to the smaller parks, I'm going to break this up into two divisions. The Park Division focuses on larger "destination" playgrounds in larger park areas and the Neighborhood Division will honor outstanding achievement for playgrounds serving a smaller area. Anywhere in the Bay Area is fair game, although I'd like to exclude places with a hefty entrance fee.
My picks are below. Yours in the comments ... Read More 'Best playgrounds in the Bay Area' »
| March 03 2009 at 04:32 PM
The old school playground equipment dilemma
At least the views will be nice when she falls. Or not.
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Maybe we should start a new feature around here about conflicted parenting. Because you know that never happens. But having gone there several times in the past two weeks, I've been thinking a lot about Dolores Park playground in San Francisco, and despite all the arguments running through my head for and against it, I still find myself ... conflicted.
Do I like it? Do I hate it? I don't know. The answer varies from day to day.
You may have seen a park just like it. It has a big playground completely covered in sand, and rising from the loam is the kind of old-school, '70s-era equipment we probably all remember as children. No plastic. No bells and whistles. Just good ol' fashioned arsenic- tainted wood, cold, dented metal and lots and lots of ladders. A veritable wonderground of forgotten playtime in an age of bubble- wrapped parenting. Read More 'The old school playground equipment dilemma' »
| May 12 2008 at 10:02 AM
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