Dissassembling the Swing Set

Time Marches on, doesn't it?  My bride, on Sunday, July 13th turned 48.  For exactly 90 days she'll be older than me and over the years, she's put up with more than her share of remarks from me about her 'robbing the cradle' or 'being my old lady.'  We made the observation yesterday that she's known me for more years now than she didn't know me.  Or more clearly stated, we've been married to each other for now better than half our lives.  Where does the time go?  Really?  Hopefully it went toward building some good memories living the "good life."

In keeping with that topic, Tricia asked me if I would do something with the old swing set.  In the backyard under the shade of a sprawling live oak tree, sits the kids' swing set, first erected in 1996 for Laura Lee's third birthday present.  I can remember working late into the night with my ratchet set opened and sockets, parts, instructions and tools scattered all across the driveway.  It finally came together.  It wasn't a perfect assembly process and if I remember correctly, there were extra nuts and bolts leftover that I hadn't a clue where they were supposed to go.  But despite making mistakes in the assembly process, the swing set was functional and survived three rambunctious kids, eighteen years, a 30 mile relocation and in the process was part of the memories of being a kid (and a young parent) in our family.

Laura Lee at 3 years old with her shiny new swing set

Russ & Laura Lee having fun on the new swing set back in 1996

Fun Family times on the swing set.  How time flies!?!

Now, eighteen years later, the swing set shows considerable wear and age, not unlike the person who put it together.  The slide sits at a precarious angle due to a supporting bolt rusting through.  The foot pedals on the two person swing have rusted completely off and the entire structure is covered in a heavy coating of algae or mildew.  When I look at it, I can remember swinging the kids high, with them giggling and laughing. Sometimes they'd jump from the swing and be launched out into the grass.

The Old Swing Set many years later...

The seat to the two person swing on the right has open sections underneath the back that provide protective habitat for wasps to build their nests in every single year and our kids and the neighbor kids have been stung by many red wasps that have made their home there.  Like clockwork, each year I dutifully walk out with a cup full of gasoline to splash on those darned wasps to kill them. Seems like this design flaw would have been corrected by now by swing set manufacturers?  I can't imagine I'm the only one who does this each year.  Just yesterday I was weed eating around it and was chased away from there as a swarm of angry wasps made me "kick it into overdrive."

The wasps' secret lair

Finally one of the supporting legs has completely rusted through, making it tilt and wobble if you sit on it and try to swing.  You can see that it doesn't even touch the ground anymore.  Not safe.  Not safe at all.

Heck, the kids are grown and I can't even remember the last time that they sat on it. And yet it sits, slowly deteriorating in the backyard year after year.  "Honey, can you do something about the swing set?" Tricia asks.

"Yeah, I'll put it on my to do list," I say.  Besides, I rationalize, we have the wooden swing hanging in the tree that shades the swing set and Laura Lee's swing I hung for her sits in a tree to the right of it.  You can see all three of the swings in the photo below.

The three swings

Why is it so hard?  What am I such a sentimental fool?  Just take down the swing set, Kyle.  So Saturday morning I gathered some of the same tools I used 18 years ago to build it, and I walk out there and remove the two person swing that had the food pedals that rusted off and I remove the slide that sits at an unsafe angle.

Disassembly 18 years later

I cram it in our trash can the best I can and wheel it to the end of the road for trash pick-up and walk back to the house to pick up the tools that are scattered around underneath the tree. After consideration, I've decided to leave the rest of the swing set still standing.

Rolling it to the road

It stands as some sort of a monument or reminder.  A reminder that: It finally came together.  It wasn't a perfect assembly process and if I remember correctly, there were extra nuts and bolts leftover that I hadn't a clue where they were supposed to go.  But despite making mistakes in the assembly process, the swing set was functional and survived three rambunctious kids, eighteen years, and a 30 mile relocation and in the process was part of the memories of being a kid (and a young parent) in our family.

I realized that the IT in the paragraph above that I was thinking about wasn't only referring to the swing set, but was symbolic of our kids growing up, of our learning to be parents.  It wasn't anywhere near a perfect process.  We once pushed them on that swing set, launching them into the yard.  Now they've been launched into adulthood. Similar to putting the swing set together, we had probably more than our fair share of "missing pieces," and times where we clearly didn't know where "pieces" were supposed to go.  But we survived and our kids survived and despite being ragged and worn, and having "pieces" rust off, fall off, and being removed, the old swing set, and our family, lives on to face another day.