I watched Tulsa parks cease having merry go rounds tho many of them still have swings (of some sort). About 25 years ago horizontal bars disappeared from Zink Park, the park in Tulsa that I knew of which had a set. That park even lost its parallel bars. And we wonder why gymnastics has so few participants.

my wife tells me that her school playground does not have swings either.

...nor do most TPS district school playgrounds. ...something about parents suing the district for hurt kids who jump off / fall off swings, etc.

isn't that your JOB as a kid? to swing, and play, and crash and fall and get hurt all the time so you know what not to do the next time around?

Isn't this just like the liberal nanny state mindset, to protect anyone from having to deal with the bad consequence of their actions. Never mind letting someone figure out that there's a wrong way to jump out of a swing that will get you hurt, but there's a right way that's totally exhilarating and builds confidence to bail out a little higher next time you're swinging. We need to be giving our children the opportunity to be kids and to do dangerous kid stuff, not try and protect them from every possible bad scenario by denying them the chance to learn from their own mistakes. Supervise them but don't kill their sense of adventure and freedom of swinging. Swinging and high bars where one of my great joys as a child. I knocked myself out once doing back flips out of a swing and received many bruises but I'm still here and writing about it today. Let the kids be kids and let's not overprotect them to the point they can't do the dangerous and wild things we all grew up doing. It was an invaluable part of my childhood.

Thank you for linking to a post from the past, Michael.

In many ways, Independence is what a city should be -- much more urban than Tulsa. I consider Independence to be my "hometown" because I had the great fortune of living there from age 4 until I moved to Lawrence (another wonderful city itself) at age 18. Living near Riverside Park, I walked there often and spent many hundreds of joyful hours on the dangerous playground equipment and in the forest along the Verdigris River.

After living in Independence and Lawrence during my childhood and early adulthood, I became spoiled. I took for granted walking around cities with working fountains, parks with swings, buildings downtown, and yes, sidewalks built by civic-minded people who took pride in the betterment of their COMMUNITY.

P.S. Last Friday, Bill Kurtis listed seven buildings in downtown Independence for sale on eBay.

It may sound strange that a town of 10,000 would be more urban than Tulsa, but it's true, in terms of having a walkable city with a cohesive, largely intact downtown. Bartlesville was like that, too, when I lived there in the late '60s.

And there is something about civic pride in Kansas that you don't see as often in Oklahoma towns, although the Main Street program has been helping to change that.

Independence must have been a great place to grow up, Paul.

Here's Bill Kurtis's eBay ad. Wish I had the money....