The Swing

From time to time it was my duty to change Ann and John’s diapers. It was during this chore that I first realized that infants are indestructible. During a moment of inattention on my part, each of my kids, on separate occasions, rolled off of the changing table from a height of roughly three feet onto the hard linoleum floor. Both screamed, loudly, but neither died. Whodathunkit! Thank god that Jean was not there.

At our first house in Stone Mountain, GA, we had a backyard with the obligatory metal pipe variety of swing-set, secondhand of course, and a cool geodesic dome jungle gym that was roughly four feet at its highest point, also secondhand. Neither of these was sufficient in my mind to satisfy my ballsy death-defying indestructible kids. Hell no! They needed to have a real swing, a high swing, like they have at park playgrounds for the bigger kids, only higher, not some sissy munchkin swing-set. My kids were indestructible, right?

A really good swing is so much fun, with two points of particular joy. The main objective, I recall, is going as high as you can, and that brief moment of weightlessness at the end of each trajectory; the adrenaline rush from the danger of going higher than ever before was intoxicating. The secondary thrill was the awesome speeds you could obtain while swinging back and forth. A swing placed high in the trees with really long ropes should permit greater heights, and greater speeds.

We had two tall straight Georgia pines in our backyard about 10 feet apart. If I was to use the two trees to hang a swing from at a significant height, the kids shouldn’t be able to hit either of the trees even if they tried. Don’t worry, they never did. Their near-death moments came at my hand, not their own.

So I went to a toy store and bought a flexible swing seat with metal brackets at each end to connect a rope or chain to, just like they have at park playgrounds. I went to the hardware store and bought 50 feet of rope with a rating of 250 pounds. If each rope of the swing is supporting half of the user’s weight, the swing should support a 500 pound person. “That ought to do the trick”, I thought.

I had a 20-something foot extension ladder to use when putting the swing up. The length of the ladder isn’t important to the story. The important point is that my body starts shaking in uncontrollable fear at a height of 10 feet. The problem was that I wanted a monster swing; a kick-ass kill them all and let god sort them out kind of swing. The kind of swing that kids will love because it is way too high for good sense and freaks mothers out. Kids are fearless and love heights. That is the swing I wanted my kids to have.

I used the ladder fully extended to put up the swing. The ladder was tied to the tree so it couldn’t slip out from under me. When I climbed the ladder it started shaking when I was half-way up, not because the ladder was unsteady, but because my legs were shaking the ladder. The kids were watching, and I wanted to appear brave, but there was no way to mask the truth.

The kids would only be able to swing as high as I tied the rope in the trees, so I really wanted to put it way up there. I climbed slowly up the ladder, really just prolonging my own agony, not really adding any safety to the moment at all. When I reached a height beyond which I dared not go, I had to wrap the rope around the tree and tie it off. Imagine my horror when I realized I would have to LET GO OF THE LADDER WITH BOTH HANDS to put the rope around the tree and tie the knot. To make a short story, which is already too long, shorter, I accomplished the mission on one tree, and again on the other tree at the exact same height.

Measured from the base of the trees, the swing was 18 feet high. By mathematical definition it was a kick-ass, kill them all and let god sort them out, freak-out mother of a swing.

The swing was a great attraction to neighborhood kids and visitors. We enjoyed showing off the swing and Ann and John’s bravery to ride the thing. It was quite a sight to see little kids squealing with delight well above the heads of the adults.

The problem was wind resistance. There was no way I could get Ann and John up to 18 feet. The equation for wind resistance (drag) increases with the square of velocity. So when their velocity doubled, the wind resistance quadrupled! When the kids reached the bottom of the swing’s trajectory they were going so fast that the wind resistance slowed them incredibly. It was a severe disappointment; a major bummer.

The kids were always yelling for me to push them “higher”. The kids kept a death grip on the ropes, but it wasn’t particularly comforting as a parent. When I would push them on their backs or butts to achieve the desired height, I would push them right off of the swing seat. They were hanging by their hands and arms from the ropes, with the swing seat trailing uselessly from behind, at a height of roughly 10 feet in the air! I caught them as quickly as I could before their little munchkin hands let go, then quickly looked about to see if Mom was watching.

“Don’t tell Mom”, I told them.

I needed another method, a safer method, to get them up in the air. I took to standing way back behind the swing. I wanted to catch them when their backwards motion stopped ever so briefly, and before the forward motion began again. My theory was that I could reach up (because they were well over head) and hook my fingers on the seat of the swing to sling them forward with all my might. Since I wasn’t touching their bodies I would not be pushing them off of the swing. I was only moving the swing.

Well sure enough, I was right; I was only moving the swing. I threw the swing forward with great force, but unfortunately, only the swing moved forward and the kid was left behind. The kid was again left hanging from the ropes, supported only by the strength of their munchkin hands and arms, with the swing seat preceding them through the arc. If they let go at the wrong moment, they would easily travel 10 feet horizontally and another 10 feet vertically. Again, I would catch them as quickly as I could before they fell.

History repeats itself.

“Don’t tell Mom!”