When I was a kid, The Slide commanded respect. Not every child rode The Slide. Not every child was brave enough to ride The Slide. Some kids would face ridicule and shame, rather than ride the slide. Ridicule and shame were worse than a Hot Vulcan. (A Hot Vulcan is being punched in the ear.)
At the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School playground, The Slide had its own section. It was set apart from the jungle gym, monkey bars and swings. It sat in a gravel rectangle, bordered by treated 4x6 pine. It was tall. I don't know how tall, but it was twice as tall as our Principal, Mr. Crissmas, who was the tallest person at school. It was held up by sturdy galvanized steel poles, it had a long ridged descent, marked with dimples where children had thrown rocks, and buffed to a chrome shine from the bottoms that rode its slope. It had 14 steps to get to the top, and at the top there was a rounded handrail on either side. There was no platform at the top, it was just stairs up, and slide down. No room for error. I believe this is the reason David Pittman broke his shoulder falling from the top of the slide.
The question you feared when you went to the playground was, "Are you going to ride the slide today?"
If you were asked that, you had to ride it. You couldn't say no, or you would face ridicule and shame. You had your pride to worry about. And from the ages of five to eleven, your pride is a hungry beast, untamed and untrained. If someone asked, you had to ride the slide.
I believed for a time that the slide actually talked to me, taunted me, laughed at me for being scared. "Muahhahahahah! Ride me, I dare you! But remember the paralyzing fear you will feel at the top of the slide where the ladder runs out and the fast trip to the bottom begins!"
The slide was like every bully at school rolled into one. Taller than me, faster, stronger, more dangerous. I was deathly afraid of the slide until I was about ten years old. If you rode the slide in shorts, you had to remember to pick up your legs off the surface for two reasons: First, it might be hot as a griddle from baking in the sun, and second, your slightly sweaty legs might act like a spike strip and slow you down or even stop you halfway down. Then you were stuck, too high to jump, too scared to move.
But what a ride! Nothing compared to the slide for thrills. I suppose a big part of it was the fear. The whoosh down the slope was fast and fun mostly, but I think it was the fear of the slide that made it the most fun of the stationary structures. It was dangerous, but it beckoned.
