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Your first paragraph made me laugh. I'm that old too. We also regularly rode in the bed of pickup trucks, especially coming home from a baseball game.

Playground equipment today is very different. No merry-go-round, see-saws, monkey bars, etc. Even the swing sets are not always there.

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The playground equipment I see these days is simply awesome. Yes, improved safety, but also markedly more imaginative and fun-looking (climbing walls, flying foxes, monkey bars and other 'hang-from' stuff that's incorporated into interesting structures you can move around, still lots of swings). I don't see many see-saws but they were always pretty lame. I also don't see any merry-go-rounds but I didn't like them as a child anyway. I think kids have it so much better in terms of playground equipment these days, at least where I live. I do wonder that I don't see it getting more use though.

Check out some newer playgrounds. Now that they have this soft rubbery ground, all the "dangerous" stuff is back! :-) I live within walking distance of two different parks that have all four of what you named, in San Francisco.

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