Playground

In the small California town where I grew up, we had some of the best city parks and playgrounds in the world. Huge expanses of manicured green grass, rolling hills, tennis courts, mature pine trees that were easy to climb, all in safe neighborhoods free of crime and child predators and gang violence and graffiti. There were huge sand pits surrounding the massive steel playground equipment - giant slides, monkey bars multiple stories high, towers and ladders and huge swings hung with steel chains that could secure an ocean liner. The inevitable human-powered merry-go-round, kids falling off into the sand, dizzy, sometimes puking, laughing. There wasn't any sense of responsibility or liability on the part of the Parks and Recreation department; if we got hurt, it was our own fault and we shouldn't be so careless. The responsibility was on us, the liability our own, as it should be. The cool pits of sand sheltered by sycamore trees was a favorite place to play in the summer, we would make sand castles, but we had to dig down deep to get to the wet sand, in order to make massive ancient cities perfect for army men or Matchbox cars or Tonka trucks. Occasionally, we'd be digging in the sand and run across an unexpected clump of the wet stuff, too shallow to be the mother lode, and we'd hand it off to our sister, who'd be asking, "Did you find some wet sand?"
"Sure, here it is; oh wait, no it isn't, it's cat shit!"