Flashback Friday

The Swing

by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do! 

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside- 

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown-
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

I used to love to swing.  Every recess I would fly out to the playground to be first on the swings.  We had some swings with the same type of seat in the picture but most of the swings had wooden seats. I had heard that if you swung high enough that you could go over the bars, which I tried to do on numerous occasions.  One time when I was trying to go over the bars I fell out of the swing and knocked myself silly.  A girl helped me up to the restroom where I passed out, I had a goose egg on the side of my head where I had landed. I think I was in the 5th grade.  My sisters and I took turns pushing each other until my dad showed us you could stand up and bending your knees just right you could go quite high, and of course got him out of pushing us.  

It was also fun to bail out of the swing before it stopped swinging, and a challenge to see how high you could bail out without getting hurt.

I was sad the day that when I started to swing I got dizzy.  Swinging has never been the same. I still try when I see a swing; sometimes I just sit and think and dream of youth gone by.