Swinging on Tires

Some of my favorite things to play on/in as a child were tires. Tires and gigantic wooden apple crates together made for extreme country kid fun. With a little teamwork, they could be stacked and assembled to make rocket ships, Noah's Ark, war-time bunkers, and Time Machines.

I spent much of my childhood in a somewhat poor logging and ex-hippy town. We didn't have playground equipment at our little church school, but we did have gigantic log truck tires, a concrete pad where we played Four-square, and of course, a tether ball pole.

But my favorite by far were the tires. Smelling of dirty rubber and swampland (they almost always had pools of stale water inside), this little unafraid-of-dirt-girl, could curl up and hide for long minutes, just listening to the sounds of nature and her playground companions.

Or, other days, I would brave welted legs by sitting in the center of a tire roped to a tree and swing and twirl until my head was dizzy and my stomach in knots.

The tire swing at my school was pretty tame, so I didn't use it much, but I had some friends with a swing out in their woods, perfectly situated at the top of a hill. I remember swinging out over the open slope, surrounded by trees and fallen leaves, and feeling like I could fly.

That's why I'm so glad that we now have a little tire swing in our barnyard. Its a small tire, too small for my grown up legs to fit through, and too close to the tree for real swinging, but it is there. And just looking at it takes my mind to another place and another time, when I was a little girl, lost in an imaginary world.

Share your tire swing stories with me! And then go read this tire swing poem.

In other news, I am going to make these today, and I can hardly wait for that first taste. I'll tell you if I like them later.