Some years ago, in response to something I said or did, my guy humorously asked, "Are you sure I didn't meet you on the playground?" (implying, of course, that what I'd said or done was endearingly childlike), and that was that. I've never really had any nicknames (at least any that stuck) but, somehow, Playground Girl seemed pretty fitting and I decided it would be my primary cyber name.
I'd been intrigued by blogging but, despite enjoying writing, I'm not much of a diarist -- which is the general format of most of the blogs I've seen, so it didn't have much pull for me but I finally succumbed. The obvious name for my blog: The Playground.
It seemed that the next logical thing for me do was to establish for myself the goals and parameters for the blog. Maybe not the traditional journalistic "who, what, when, where, why and how" but something to help me establish a baseline(?) for what I hoped to achieve here. So I decided to see what the Internet has to say about playgrounds, and the following seemed a good jumping-off place:
City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them; and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children can not afford to pay carfare.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
