ll, it’s May and that means those little McCarty Grand Brats will be getting carted all over suburbia to go play with their friends. Just thinking of those Fun-starved Freeloaders makes me more hopping mad than Mel Gibson on a trampoline. When I was a kid, if we wanted to have fun, our parents sent us to Coyle Park and they didn’t see us until the street lights came on. We had way more fun than these kids will ever have.

I can just picture those Bouncing Bozos now renting a Bounce House to put in their backyard for their next crappy birthday party. And everything has got to be “Super Safe” with the kids bouncing on an air mattress in their socks. Then, the “Cool Mom” will have one too many Pinot Grigios and climb into the Jumpy Castle. When I was a kid, if you wanted to play on a Castle you went to the Cheese Castle at Coyle Park. The Cheese Castle was a cement structure in the middle of the park and you could scrape your knees just by looking at it. Sure, there were lots of exposed rebar on it from the Smokers blowing off M-80s in the Cheese Castle Windows, but we didn’t care, we loved it!

And you can bet those Spoiled Spelunkers will be going to Gymboree to get adult supervision while they walk on a balance beam over a padded mattress and wearing a helmet. When I was a kid, we had the Slide at Coyle Park. That slide was gigantic piece of stainless steel and we’d bring some wax paper so we could go even faster down that slide. Sure, that slide would heat up to about 240 degrees on a hot summer day and there would be broken Coke bottles and rusty nails at the bottom of it, but we didn’t care, we loved it. 

And those Hungry Hooligans can’t go 2 minutes without having something to eat, so they will have to go to Chuck E. Cheese and fill up on Coca Cola and Crappy Cheese Pizza while they listen to the Animatronic Band play some homemade Happy Birthday Song so they don’t have to pay royalties. When I was a kid, if you got hungry at Coyle Park you had to hope the Good Humor Truck came by, and if he did, you could get the “Glorious” Bomb Pop for 25 cents which was a beautiful Red White and Blue Popsicle that looked like it was blasting from the side of the Good Humor truck.  In reality, it had freezer burn and it would melt and fall off the stick before you finished it, but we didn’t care, we loved it.

So, you take your crappy kids to all these fancy schmancy places and be sure to bring plenty of bottled water for the trip. As for me, I’m heading to Coyle Park and I’m going to have an old fashioned fun day like we used to. And if I need some water after running away from the Smokers, I bet the Coyle Park Drinking Fountain still works just like it used to. That means it either will shoot out about 15 feet or it will trickle out of the spout and I’ll have to practically put my lips on it to get some water. But, I won’t care, I’ll love it!!