The T-Swing Adventure

Photo credit: I’d all but given up trying to find an image of this wonderful playground device but decided to try one last cry for help. I sent a note out to a Facebook group from Petaluma and fortunately, Patricia Wong Dewey came through for me.

It likely had some official name, but we called it, ‘The T-Swing’. You can see it faintly in the upper left corner of her family photo below. The photo is dark but look in the highlighted box and you’ll see it.

I decided to keep my hacked-together silhouette image above because it better demonstrates both how we used and how much our beloved victims “loved” their rides. Compare the photo with my silhouette image and you’ll have a pretty good idea how this thing worked and why a bunch of high school friends found it absolutely irresistible.

Hold on tight dear reader. This one can be a, um, “memorable” ride.

Young teenage boys are often struggling with balancing the force of many drives from deep within our souls. For the purpose of this memory, I’ll call out just a couple. One is the drive for epic, adrenaline-laced adventures because we have to collect as many great and shocking memories before our bodies became breakable and anything that can be described as a near-death experience certainly satisfies this force.

The second drive is of course, our still-new-found attraction of girls. You know this one well and you also know how it results in all kinds of actions with unintended consequences. This story brings both of these drives together in one drastic, gravity-defying, shocking acceleration and dead-stop cycle experience that not many will remember now because some insurance company lawyer must have realized just how much more fun these swings delivered in wild excesses beyond what they were willing to allow any municipality to provide.

For longer than I’ve been alive, our side of Petaluma (the west and best side) has maintained a large city park named, McNear Park, named for a famous Petaluma founding family. In 1971-73, this park had a unique and (if used correctly – EPIC) special swing. We all know that regular swings can result is some pretty creative uses but if they were used as intended, they were pretty safe until you walked in front of a swinging girl with those hard soled shoes that she would plant into your chest at a very high speed. But did that insurance guy care about these swings. . . ? You know he didn’t – thankfully.

Arguably, the swing at the center of this story, had no safe use. It could only really be used as a thrill ride because, well, we could not figure out any other way to use it. But as we used it, it was the most awesome swing ever, and should have been installed only with nearby recovery areas, with soothing music, coloring books and looping videos of snowflakes gently drifting down against a peaceful river and valley landscape – oh and a small booth where you could borrow a gerbil for the gal you just made barf. That would have helped. Gerbils are always soothing.

For this story, I tried to find the official name for this swing, but, as near as I can tell, all public information about it has been purged from the internet – perhaps by insurance lawyers who were in a lather to erase liability for several great wipe-outs that should have, yea must have, cost them millions of dollars. So, except for this story, all memory of this swing has been scrubbed from history or perhaps only available on the dark web – where I’ve never been.

We called it a T-Swing because that’s what it looked like:

• One heavy vertical post in the center, reaching about 15 feet high,
• One horizontal, spring-loaded, support cross arm for the top of the “T” that both teetered like a totter and rotated around the main vertical post,
• Two swings hanging at either ends of the “T”,
• All designed so the swings could “gently” rotate around the center post.

Really you ask? Yes, someone likely thought this swing would be used “gently” which is just nuts because even the most mildest of circular velocities would pull an unrestrained rider out away from the center post and leave her hanging on to the seat chains to keep from flying away on a trajectory roughly parallel to the ground which made the T-Swing both wildly scary and awesome!

And yes, of course we made the girl promise to not fall out because this was one of those activities that it was just best that all of our parents not know anything about.

Anyway, whatever its designed use was, we did not use it that way. We did spend at least two minutes trying to determine how it was supposed to be used but had to move on because the gals were waiting for the promised thrill, so we quickly turned to deliver on our promise. Since I was the only one with previous experience, I demonstrated with Cathy – a charming gal I wanted to impress. Here’s what I demonstrated:

• Starting with a completely stationary swing, we put a beloved victim in one swing, and had her just sit there. Footnote: it was best if she’d never seen the T-Swing in use before and already trusted you to some degree.
• We assured her of her safety – because normally, she’s already doubting it.
• Then a runner, puts his stomach into the seat of the other swing and moved to the center post, grabbed it and started pulling his swing around it. The runner would speed up as fast as he was able. The beloved victim’s swing, of course would follow around proportionally faster speed and increasing altitude.
• When the runner had her going pretty fast (as judged by the degree of distress noises the beloved victim emitted and the nearly parallel to the ground angle, she was swinging at – then it was time for the fun to really begin.
• The runner would then let go of the center post and run, with the swing still in his stomach, as far from the post as he could get in few seconds because,
• When the inertia of the flying beloved victim caught up with him, all her momentum (her weight + her speed) was immediately transferred from her, through the top bar of the ‘T’,  to the runner and he’d shoot off the ground at an amazing rate of speed, sometimes sailing well above parallel-to-the ground. Watching this was itself shocking.
• The victim, now with no momentum, almost stopped in midair and instantly swung down to the ground.
• She could be excused for thinking the ride was over, but then the in-flight runner-now flyer, caught up with her and the great transfer of momentum reversed itself just like those clicking suspended ball bearing toys.
• She normally started screaming at this point as she repeated his high velocity launch back up to almost match her original speed while the runner dropped to a near stop. The acceleration was surprisingly fast, and this transfer of energy went back and forth several times until everything slowed and stopped.  The ride was now over unless,
• The runner recovered enough to stagger back to the post before the beloved victim could jump free and herself stagger off to safety. Once the runner got the process started again, it was difficult for the girl to escape, because once the runner started to circle the center post, the beloved victim was quickly too high for a safe jump to freedom.

For most of us, about 3 cycles left both the runner and beloved victim dazed and out of breath. She might also complain of disorientation, dizziness, and mild stomach distress to match her unusual facial skin color. As we cycled through different runners and beloved victims, some of us were threatened with terrible sounding modes of revenge by beloved victims who, once released from the ride, often needed to sit down before they fell down while making eerie, bubbling, burp-like noises. But, except for those recovering from a previous ride, we all cheered loudly for how high above the parallel-to-the-ground line each runner was able to achieve on his first launch – and survive of course.

I’m pretty sure we had many near misses of seeing what our beloved victims had for her most previous meal, but hey, we were all kids pulling as much fun from life as this unique swing could deliver.

Besides, there was just something deeply satisfying about putting in the effort to get your beloved victim sailing at such high speeds and altitudes around that post, thanks to the physics of multiplication that dictated that if you ran around the post in about 4 seconds, your beloved victim was approaching the speed of sound to make the same circuit because she was more like 15 feet from that post – barely hanging on – making memories she’d likely never forget – or forgive, then to be suddenly stopped in mid-air allowing a smooth descent where she would always miss the split second chance to jump free and be whipped back towards the sky for another quick launch. By the time the cycle wound down, both were wasted, but the girl often looked a lot worse for the wear and tear. On the other hand, she always looked oddly charming all splayed out on the grass, trying to keep her last meal down – not unlike the classic damsel-in-distress look.

But you know what; she always – always came back for another ride. . .  I may have to admit that boys often enjoy the mixed messages we get from girls.

After only a few years – this great swing tragically disappeared. But for the survivors who experienced it – it created some great memories. Now, many generations of children and teenagers have been denied the epic ride that was possible when Petaluma had a T-Swing, but perhaps they’ll live longer.

I still drive by McNear Park sometimes. The trees are much larger and beautiful. The sand filled play area is still there, well maintained by the city, but it is now filled with shiny new and REALLY boring toys.

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