My wife and I were visiting my historical birthplace recently. Hey, I think my birth was a historical moment. I admit not quite on the same level as the birth of Christ, the invention of the wheel, or creation of Rice Krispies (Now that’s a big deal. They make noise when you pour milk over them. How cool is that).
As many of you have figured out, I am from Chicago and proud of it. I try to get back to where I grew up when I can, and soak up the culture, and quite a bit of the food. I experienced some of the life I once enjoyed in northeastern Illinois when my wife and I visited a venue called “Going Ape.”
“Going Ape” is an adventure in the treetops of the forest preserve near my ancestral home. Sounds so much better than “my old house,” doesn’t it? It is a series of rope bridges, zip lines, rope swings, and platforms suspended between the trees in the beautiful forest preserve we were visiting. I made it through the course we chose to traverse and was very proud of myself…and didn’t scream once.
You are probably asking yourself what climbing through trees has to do with my childhood. The forest preserve we visited for this adventure was the very same forest my siblings, friends, and I used to play in when we were just kids.
I should first tell you about the “forest preserves” that surround and run through the Chicago area. They are exactly what the name says, a forest preserve. A long time ago, some wise person decided we should save some of the beautiful forest in the Chicagoland area. A large amount of these wooded lands were set aside, a department to manage it was created, and the forest that has graced the Chicago area for thousands of years, was saved and maintained. This department has done a great job of protecting the beautiful trees and not allowing development to completely wipe out its natural beauty. Ok, enough with the environmental stuff. Forest preserves are also a great place to play.
I may have said this before, but I’m not sure what my mom’s intention was when she would usher us out of the house in the morning during the summer, with the instructions, “Don’t be late for dinner.”
I came from a family of eight children and when we hit the door, we scattered, without adult supervision. My mom never asked us where we were going or what we were doing, she just wanted us out of the house. I wonder sometimes if she did this in an effort to thin our herd? Before you arrive at the wrong idea about my mom, she would dutifully run us to the emergency room whenever we needed a bone set or a cut stitched up.
When we were at “Going Ape,” I realized that I was the oldest person on this obstacle course. The children I saw at “Going Ape” were highly supervised and adults were everywhere making sure these young folks would not do something stupid during their visit to the forest. Where’s the fun in that?
This was the very forest my siblings, friends and I used to visit when we were young. At the time, they didn’t have the cool rope ladders, bridges and swings like today. If we wanted to play in the treetops we would have to climb up there on our own, without a strap attached to a cable for our safety. On top of that, our forest preserve had a creek running through it so you could add drowning as a possibility. Been there, almost done that.
It was also a great place to visit in the winter. The creek would freeze and my brother and I would head down there with our skates and hockey sticks and knock a puck around. There were also plenty of great hills to sled on, as long as you avoided the large amount of trees. Forests are like that. I saw a few folks who were not good at avoiding trees being hauled away in ambulances.
There was also a very large toboggan slide built in this particular forest preserve. Every time it snowed, there would be a long line of sledders ready to go flying down the slide. Some of us couldn’t wait for snow, so we would head over to the slide with old cardboard boxes and slide down during the summer. Problem was, if you happened to slip off your box sled, there was a chance of getting a splinter. A cousin of mine received about a 8” splinter up her backside and had to visit the emergency room to have it removed. Ah, the good times.
The forest preserves were also very popular places to hold large, organized picnics. Businesses, churches, organizations and summer programs would gather in the large meadow areas of the preserve and hold their sack races, volleyball tournaments, three legged races and pie eating contests. Very heavy picnic tables were scattered around these areas for use by the revelers. More muscles were pulled by trying to move the tables than any of the activities at the picnics. Carrying in a bunch of heavy coolers containing beer may have contributed to the injuries suffered.
I have to admit that the addition of the “Going Ape” venue was a great idea for the forest and will attract more young people to explore and play in its natural beauty. The one big difference from now to when I was young and trying to injure myself in our local forest preserve was we didn’t have to sign a waiver back then. If my mom had to do that every time I left the house, I would never have seen the sunshine.
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