kids’ activities

A Childhood Memory Revisited

by Drew Davis

My fondest Olympic memory is of the ‘84 games.  Even though I was just 8 years old, I vividly remember the way our neighborhood ‘70s-style metal playground was hastily transformed into an Olympic venue.  Our Olympians, the teenage boys in the neighborhood, invented events and rules as they went along.  The event most likely to be featured on a box of Wheaties was the way they used the momentum of the swing to kick off a shoe.  The champion’s shoe made it all the way to the slide (an Olympic record that still stands)!  A few years later, a new wooden playground was put in where everything was connected to a two story wooden structure (a precursor of the playgrounds of today) we had entered a new era!!!

The magic of my playground memories in no way prepared me for my first encounter with Kids Country in Coppell.  It is a sprawling wooden castle with bridges and turrets galore; there’s even an amphitheater.  Ancient looking Oak trees provide a roof that covers the vast majority of the area.  As I looked on incomprehensibly, I realized there was something I had lost sight of: my four year old son.