There it dangled off a crooked tree branch. Hung with chains, & ropes secured. My tire-swing swirled in loops as i spun my foot in the ground.
Years ago, my daddy had worked hard to make it fall so perfectly….I dutifully ran back & forth, from the house to my dad; refilling his big blue cup with icy iced tea. My dad sweated right through his shirt, but he didn’t quit or complain; my Daddy was too tough for meer sweat to hinder him. He hung that tire perfectly. It was not too high, & not too close to the ground. Finally, I looked in awe at his masterpiece.
My tire-swing lived in a little clearing, that wasn’t visible from the road or our home. I had memorized the path to that old tire better than the back of my hand. I knew where to duck under branches, hurdle dead logs, & jump over slight ravines filled with deeply rooted rocks. Of course, i always carried a little stick that I swirled in front of me to clear any new spider webs in my way.
You know, there isn’t that much to a tire-swing, so I don’t know why I was so fond of it. And of it, only a handful of memories remain; scenes of trees swirling by, my brother & I giggling as we furiously ran around in circles trying to spin each other dizzy, and then those times when i just hung calmly, contemplating the shivering leaves above.
My brother & I frolicked away dozens and dozens of hours with that tire-swing over the years. Around & around, again & again. You would think it would get old, yet it didn’t… even after we did.
I took two kids to the park yesterday. The moment we struggled off their straps & lifted them from car seats to ground, they raced for the tire-swing. Hopping up & down with excitement, they begged me to lift them up, and then spin them. I curled them into motion. Then watched the tire revolve. In my mind the wheel of time revolved in reverse. I saw myself, a small girl: My face was smudged with dirt, my frizzy braids had twigs sticking in & out of them, my legs were speckled with bug bites, and my bare feet were caloused and caked with mud… I heard my 7 year old cries of laughter & squeals of joy. . .
My childhood giggles meshed into the two children’s as time swung back to this play-ground in 2010…
It’s just a circle with a hole. it’s just rubber & chains. & it’s just a child’s play thing. You would think that it’d get old, and that children would loose interest. But it never does, more kids climb on, when others climb off. For, it’s the children who grow old for it.
Time is elusive. Life can spin out of control. & while you might get dizzy; enjoy the thrill of the ride! It might be just an old tire, but it’ll never get old.
