While clothing slides at exhilarating speed over a metal slider, sticky sweaty skin will instantly and firmly grip to it. You do NOT want to initiate thigh skin contact in the middle of a descent.
I have a very fond memory of my grandmother in the late 60’s and early 1970’s taking us to the playground near her house and they had one of these metal slides. We always took a roll of wax paper to tear off a piece and sit on the first few times down. After that, you could fly down this thing. Great times!!! I miss her.
We did those shitty fundraising sales the entire 6 years I was in elementary school with the promise of more playground equipment and finally when I was in 5th grade they put up a single slide. In hindsight someone had to be skimming off the top there.
…And right into rocks/gravel…
Huh, interesting reading these comments. In my area it was wood chips. Splinters everywhere, jammed between toenails and fingernails, wood chips to the face, throwing wood chips in each others eyes…
It was not many years later that school playground was renovated to have the softer outdoor foam play floor
I think wood chips were added later (after I was out of that school) “for safety” and then rubber mulch was an even later upgrade.
And when did something soft go in the playground area? Waaaay later, the school got actual grass in the playground - instead of playground equipment. 🙄 Building was closed within a few years of that happening.
We had asphalt. Monkey bars on it, too. For first graders. So many broken arms.
Ooh, damn that’s rough!
I think we had some bars over asphalt/concrete/cement (I dunno, it was a big solid surface that was also the parking lot, the kickball diamond, the wiffle ball field, and where we had all of our field and track days) but I only ever fell off the ones over the rocks. I do remember friends with broken teeth or busted noses from that, tho.
Kids these days can still enjoy the finer things in life.
