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Swinging the Gauntlet

Do you remember your first swing? Okay, I don’t either, but I think that swings are what I most associate with my childhood. Well, snowball fights and the monkey bars were close seconds, but there was something… exciting about the movement of a swing in action: a disorientation, a dizziness, and the sure and certain belief that if I really pumped hard, I would be able to swing right over the actual crossbar that held the swings. Legends, of course, were always circulating that some kid actually had done it just the year before, but, strangely enough, then his family had moved him to a different school; I lived with stories like that when I was young.

I knew intuitively, for example, that if you let go of the chains at the apogee of your arc, you would fall, break your leg, and end up paralysed; that spinning the swing and then letting go while you were still sitting on it was the same thing as getting drunk; and that swinging too vigorously while standing up on the seat would stop you from growing, well taller anyway -a continual worry for a short kid like me… Childhood in Winnipeg was a never-ending gauntlet of stories like that.

Still, swinging in those days weeded out the weak ones among us; the school grounds were usually paved with gravel, so falling from a swing or into one of the random holes that we’d dug at recess for our marble games was always a risk. Only the school bullies supervised the little kids in those days; the teachers were usually busy smoking in the teacher’s lounge and had no doubt convinced themselves that children only learned about Life by overcoming obstacles on their own. After all, that, and a coffee break for the adults, was what recess was designed for; what didn’t maim kids, made them stronger.

There were no layers of sawdust beneath the swings if we fell, and there were no little belts or cages to hold the Kindergarteners on their seats; if they couldn’t hold on, they probably wouldn’t be able to reach the seat anyway. And besides, they didn’t weigh very much even if they fell… Those were simpler times, I think.

At my age, it’s difficult to know just what the real attraction of the swing was so many years ago. Was it the movement? The competition? The hope of creating a new record height about which I could brag to my gullible parents that night as they were serving me dessert? The swing was so many things…

Only recently have I discovered that it was not always a children’s diversion[i]. Not always a toy. Once upon a time, it served serious purposes; for example, there were swinging festivals in ancient Greece, that almost certainly didn’t involve mothers in curlers proudly pushing their little bundles of joy and telling them to hang on tightly. Swinging has also  been found in cave paintings in 5th century India, although it’s unclear to me whether they were actually depicting cave-swinging competitions, or punishments.

Another story I like is the Iranian one about people apparently celebrating the Persian Nowruz New Year by swinging to mimic the way the legendary Shah Jamšīd rode his chariot through the air on the first day of Spring. I don’t remember anybody ever talking about that at recess in Winnipeg, though. Come to think about it, I don’t believe we even took the equinoxes until Grade 5 either. Of course in the Manitoba of those days there was usually still snow on the ground somewhere until at least April; I suppose the provincial educational curriculum was written so that teachers didn’t confuse us, or anything. At any rate, they put the swings and their chains away for the winter and didn’t put them out again until they were sure they wouldn’t ice up. The little kids still got their tongues stuck to metal railings throughout the winter however, and they didn’t put those away, so why the swings…? Childhood has always been full of mysteries like that, I imagine.

It seems almost magical that such a simple device like a swing has persisted largely unchanged for centuries -maybe even millennia. Historically, it was used for punishment as well as pleasure of course, but kids have always known that. When I was in Miss Bartam’s class in Grade 4, Peter, a friend of mine who was exceedingly plump, was constantly being teased at recess because of his weight I remember. A couple of older kids caught him one day, tied his right hand to his belt, then put him on a swing. He was then pushed higher and higher. Fortunately, his long-derided habitus proved his salvation that day: although he could only hang on with his left hand, he managed to stay on the seat by wedging himself against the chain. The bullies were impressed, and no doubt relieved that he hadn’t fallen off and become paralysed, they took him off the swing and untied his hand . They then decided that I, the little smart aleck friend of his, who had been yelling at them from a safe distance across the field, was next. But when I unleashed my newly perfected border-collie running technique they couldn’t catch me. Stalemate. Ahh, the naïveté of youth.

But, I still occasionally swing if I think I can get away with wandering into a playground. Let’s face it, old men still have faces that they want to save, so I certainly have to be careful where and when I swing. And of course I do not go at it like I used to. It’s not that I’m afraid of falling, or anything; it’s not that I don’t think I could circle the crossbar if I really tried; it’s not even that I don’t trust the maintenance of the chains, or the strength of the seats. I suppose it’s more that I’m afraid I’ll discover that I’m no longer as good at it as I used to be.

I wouldn’t want the kids to think that I’m what happens when they grow old…

[i] https://aeon.co/essays/the-swing-has-a-universal-history-of-transgression?

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