RANT: Its time for "the talk" - no the other one, the one about explosives

[Warning: This blog entry is a rant. I am ranting like a whining little baby (in the 4th grade sense). If you don't want to hear the rant, don't read the rant. I don't normally rant so much or even want to be a ranter, but ranting is what I'm doing. Rant imminent. Ready: Go.]

Does your 8 year old know what C4 explosives are?

Jonah and I had a tough time on Sunday in our ongoing effort to acclimate to our new location. We had a common goal, he and I: To find a playground in Oregon City (or, "the Original OC 97045" as the shirts at the local pizza joint say) on a sunny day that has a semi-modern play structure, and if we're lucky some friendly kids with whom he could play. We didn't really anticipate what would ensue.

First things first: I know this entry is going to sound horribly biased and maybe snobbish, but gall' dern' (to use the local term for "dang it") if I can't seem to find a nice local place around here for Jonah to play. I have now taken him to 5 parks in Oregon City, and the only one that is reasonably fun for him is the one at his school, which is pretty good, but does not include swings for some reason. When its wet out (ah, the brilliance of park planners in this town), the play structure is slick enough that after slipping and smacking his upper lip on one of the climbing bars he felt the only way to safely get around was to scoot everywhere in a go cart racing position. Not to mention that they put the wood chips over a nice layer of good old Oregon dirt, which becomes a cesspool of mud with a sea of floating wood chips and litter (kind of like river full of logs...hey wait a minute, maybe that was on purpose...) hiding the ankle-deep muck. Has no one here ever been to a park that was designed for kids, not to mention something reasonably functional in less than perfect weather [rant number 1]? I know it takes a little bit of budget and some thought to prevent teenage fires, but couldn't there be maybe just one trash can in which we could deposit the empty candy wrappers on the ground that Jonah is compelled to try to lick?

[begin unfair generalization rant number 2] Of course, when its not raining, I would expect that Oregonian parents would leave their cozy, smarmy rabbit holes and take the kids out to a park or two (and maybe open a window to release a little cat dander), but apparently that's not on the local agenda - there must be too much television to be watched, or maybe its because that sun thing that we've heard about might just give you lime disease, make you sterile (heaven forbid that such a thing as the latter should happen here) or rob you of your god-given right to be too depressed to brush your teeth. I'll have to watch the discovery channel to find out.

Now, granted, I am a bit upset [rant rebuttal]. And, again, Granted, we are moving here from an area that's biggest annoyance is too many people at every playground all the time (well that and helicopters hovering constantly over our neighborhood waiting for the next freeway car chase), not the other way around [not a rant, just a fact]. And I must admit, in my wayward search for a playground on Sunday, I did enjoy the drive along the river, which was quite beautiful [rebuttal number 2]. But so far, at the playgrounds that I have been to in this historic burg, the first town and capitol of the great mulleted duck state, I have had 3 distinct but somehow intertwined experiences. Let me share.

Experience number 1: After the first park (Jonah's school) turned into a failed attempt (too muddy and slippery and no swings, but the best of the lot), Jonah and I went to a large, clean-looking park on the river with a lot of walking trails and a set of swings. No slide or play structure of any kind, no basketball hoops, no low balance beams or see-saws, just swings and a pristine, expensive boat launch with a huge parking lot. Which was fine for the day - it was our second attempt at a park, and that worked. In fairness, it did have a small unoccupied concrete skatepark, which I applaud. But for experience number 1, we also had this [rant 3]: two guys, one in his late 20's to early 30's, and the other in his late teens to early 20's, parked in front of the swings, by themselves, wearing greasy baseball caps with meticulously hand-curved ratty bills (the apparent modern male mullet-optional capped Oregon City look), hanging out drinking in their mid-80's partially primered Camaro (it could have been an Iroc; I didn't get a good look). Nothing else to do on a Saturday but sit parked in front of the children's swings at 4 in the afternoon drinking coors or bud light (presumably - sorry, my bias shines through) in a beer cozy, smoking a cigarette or two. Nowhere to go, no other kids that they could claim as theirs, and not too worried about what it looks like. We lasted 10 minutes on the swings. And then it rained.

Experience number 2: Pre-game warm up at Jonah's school (back to playground number 1). We wanted to acclimate him to his surroundings, so I took him back to the playground at his school to get him used to the idea that this is a place at which he will want to stay for a few hours when the time comes. Again, no kids there; mixed clouds with sun and not cold, so it was conceivable that there might be a child-parent team or two in attendance. For experience number 2, we get the troubled pre-teenage girls looking for attention set. 3 kids walk over from the neighborhood with their small nervous dog on a leash, which was then tethered to the bench. They were two tweens in that semi-oily, awkward-fitting jeans and bedazzled flip-flops place in life where your hair gets caught in your braces a lot and your armpits seem to eviscerate your essence more than they should, and their younger pre-tween sister, all 3 parent-free and looking for something to do. Jonah was happy to have some company, particularly older girls (we already know this is going to be trouble when he gets older; so be it.), and so followed and watched them closely. They were of course absorbed in their own, "you're so stupid!" conversations and payed little attention to him, while the smallest attended to the dog, which was fine, but the conversation and look had the ring of one of the more common problems in rural Oregon [rant 4]: early teen girls who's parents seem to offer little in the way of direction to stay out of trouble for their own sake, particularly with the local tavern predatory types or guys in Iroc-Z's hanging out at playgrounds and 30-year-old malls. These girls were walking cauldrons of potential disaster, desperate for attention, hoping to be noticed for their newfound bifurcation of feminine identity, lacking the matured womanly guidance that all girls should have when they begin to discover that they have an innate power over their male counterparts simply by existing. Its hard to find a word or phrase to name the sense that you get when you encounter kids at this stage in life; but its a period of my daughter's life that as a parent I will suffer and die to try to help guide her through, reasonably unscathed, if there is any possible way to influence her at all when the time comes. Based on empirical evidence I know it can be done. I wish it had been done for these children, these young ones who are most certainly someone's precious babies. They came and went, seeing that attention was lacking, and we left shortly after. It was depressing. I know the word: Nappy. No, Grungy? Its like cotton mouth and candy canes when its drizzling, or not showering for days while eating potato chips with extra salt, kinda' greasy, kinda' bloaty, kinda...I know - Funky. That about covers it. Not really. But I give up. The upside: Jonah found the broken upper torso of a toy motocross racer half buried in the remains of the muddy sea, which was much more interesting (and tasty) than the other litter under the big slide.

Experience number 3: Our mission: check out the local park recommended in the Department of Parks and Recreation newsletter, the, "City of Oregon City Trail News." Which led us to failed park number one for the day [rant 5], touted as a "children's park," which is now apparently used more as an off leash dog park (where the swing set area is now a large dog defecation repository, as opposed to a set of seats connected to chains from which one pushes and pulls their young child to altered states of glee). This park had a swing and one mother of an old metal slide, but that was it. Nothing to exhaust my little one into spontaneous REM sleep. So, back to the same school playground we went, with no swings of course, but at least something to climb on. We were alone there for quite some time despite the mid-sixties temperatures, sunny skies, and dried out structures (although the muddy wood chip litter sea was still partially in tact). Just when I was beginning to wonder yet again, where the children are, along came the following: Adults, 4 of them, with 4 kids, all adorned in various shades of camouflage or army green, blue jeans, and 3 of the 4 wearing the signature curved billed hand-formed caps. Overlooking my bias against the greasy cap thing, I thought this had promise. At the time they came over, I was on the phone with April telling her of our disappointing adventures at park 1, but told her that I should get off the phone because things were maybe changing for the better. I should have stayed on the phone if only to prove how things would go to someone else.

First of all, let me get this out of the way [rebuttal 3]: The kids were actually very good kids. Nothing against the kids. Nice enough, playing in a friendly fashion for the most part, and causing no harm. So Jonah was following them around again, trying to fit in and play the games they were playing, which mostly consisted of climbing up the slides and figuring out different ways of sliding down them. Jonah was following at a distance, but starting to see what the routine was.

The first tip-off that things were headed awry [rant 6 - the awakening] was when one of the children yelled down to one of the adults to come up to the top and slide down - the parent replied, "Naw I ain't doin' that - I'm too fat! 'F I climbed up there, it'd be like if somebody took and wrapped a bunch of C4 around the legs of that thing and blew 'em all out at the same time!" raucous laughter ensued, child and parent alike. Good family fun.

Now at this point, that's not really a big deal [rebuttal 4, back to sleep]. I mean, it seems a little odd to me that an 8 year old would understand a reference to C4 explosives (and think it was funny), but no biggie - any modern video game system with a violent war game or two has probably introduced the concept to these kids. But it was then that I started to pay a little more attention to the parents. It was clear that they were either ex- or active military folks, which can be a good thing. It can also be a bad thing. Soldiers have to accept a culture of violence as part of the air they breathe, and while most right-wing folks would argue that life is only about survival (which often means to make it in this world you have to kill or be killed, thank you George Bush), we are trying to raise our kids separated from that kind of thinking in favor of changing the world in other ways. Its why I don't really care to live in military towns. My way of thinking doesn't really mesh too well with the "blow it up and ask questions later" approach to homemaking, childrearing, and political influence, and I am ok with that.

So to make a long story short, here is a list of the details [rant-free, just facts]: One guy with a t-shirt that says, "Everything I know I learned from GI Joe", another with a Go Army shirt and hat, and the other two in various shades of army green shirts that I didn't catch the details on. Fine. Next detail: They all (the adults) decided to try to do pull-ups on the jungle gym equipment - one guy could do 3, another guy whacked his head on one of the bars (note to self [rant-ish in the form of sarcasm]: if you are doing a pull-up by grabbing two bars (rather than a single bar), make sure that there is not another large metal bar evenly spaced between the two you grab unless you like the feeling of smashing the crown of your head into said large metal auxiliary bar), the third guy did 1 pull-up, and the girl decided to try to climb the fireman's pole, an attempt that got her exactly 1.5 feet off the ground before giving up. Cool. Whatever. I don't think I can do even 1, so I don't care. Lots of talk about how, "when I was in boot camp I was underweight and blah blah had to do 50 ass-kicks blah blah corporal lalala blam fuddrucker mutherchuckers chigga chigga booyah hay!...." or something like that. guttural laughter again.

Meanwhile, the kids play was starting to crank up a notch or two. [facts from here on out, no ranting necessary] One of the older kids decided it would be fun to pretend to kill the other older girl with an imaginary knife. Ah the fun of pretending to stab one's own siblings repeatedly about the head and neck while yelling, "Yeaaaa die sh--head die!" I think I remember doing that with my sisters while playing those yarn finger games (Jacob's Ladder? I can't remember). Good times.

Next, the girl says, "Hey I know! Lets pretend we're kid eaters and we can eat the little kids! [to her younger brother] AAAGGHHHH I'm going to eat you kid!!!"...

Jonah was on the edge at this point. He has not been around a lot of openly aggressive kids, so I think at this turn of events he was a little more fascinated than scared, but it was hard to tell. The stabbing thing didn't really phase him; I think it was the shear volume that was flipping little emergency switches in his brain. In the mean time I had moved closer to where he was, midway up the climbing structure.

"No I know - how about if we pretend we're vicious dogs! Yeah and then I can attack you! RAar-Raarraarh raarararARRaar!!!"

This was critical mass for Jonah; that point at which the glass has overflowed and is not stopping, the microwave has melted the plastic into the macaroni and cheese, and the television that is perpetually running in the back of his mind has begun smoking and buzzing like the sound of light sabers clashing. In a fit of terror, he threw himself onto the stairs and started screaming and shaking, uncontrollably upset. I grabbed him quickly and reassured him that it was OK, that they were just playing, and that pretending to be a child-eating dog or pretending to stab your relatives can be good clean all-American fun, but he wasn't buying it.

One of the parents came over right away and said, "Hey, were they pickin' on him?" I told him no, they were just pretending to be dogs and it scared him. The overwhelming smell of all-day drinking accompanied the parental figure (who, did you know, could kill me with one hand in less than 3 seconds?), which explained a lot.

Jonah and I waited there for a few minutes hopeful that he would regain his composure a little and be able to get back to playing, but the kids continued to play in much the same fashion, and the adults as well (complete with two of them deciding it was a good time to reaffirm their vows (or at least the making out part)), so we decided to leave. On our way home, we passed another interesting site: two guys pulled over on the side of the highway trying to get into a fist fight over a traffic difference or maybe a disagreement about haute couture. One bearded flannel older man standing on the runner of his minivan using the passenger door as a shield, yelling and pointing, and the other mulleted capped younger man both shoving and pulling the minivan door trying to get beardzilla to engage him in a challenge of vehicular hubris. I turned the car around to see if I could get a better look (I have been reading a lot about the Portland inspiration for chuck palahniuk's "Fight Club") but by the time I got back to the scene they had both just driven off, I'm guessing to one of the many, many taverns in Oregon City to sort out their differences in a fit of alcoholic mediation.

[Rant over. Resume happy shiny reports on all things Portland.]