Swings

Us Hockeys never had a swing set in the back yard. If we asked about getting a swing set my dad would take a slug of V.O. and say, "There's motherfucking swings down at the park. Why don't you get out of the fucking house and use the swings there? My taxes pay for those swings!"

So what we used to do was visit kids we knew who had a swing set and break it. Swing sets are easy to break. Most sets are rusty and have already just about been broken by a drunk grown-up sitting their fat ass in the saddle.

Every once in a while my mom would gather the young Hockeys and we would have a little talk. She would put down her wine and say, "Mrs. Manitoba down the road says my little bastard children broke her kid's swing set. She said she still owes $20 to the department store for it. She wanted me to pay the last $20 for her rusty dog piss pole of a swing set. I told her I'd sooner give a blow job to Andre Boudrias. What the fuck is the matter with you children? Do you have to break everything you touch?"

We did break everything we got our hands on. If you do not break whatever toys you get you are not having any fun. He who breaks the most toys wins.

The swings at the park, unlike back yard swings, were cemented into the ground. Most of the park swings had four saddles but usually at least two of the saddles were broken. We used to swing as high as we could and then jump and land on the ground to see how badly we could hurt ourselves. That was a fun game.

Swings back then were not surrounded by pea gravel like you see now. The swings were surrounded by mud. When it rained (just about every day) huge puddles formed under the swings where we dragged our feet. When we got home mom would say, "Look at your feet! You look like the dirty French kids back in motherfucking Alberta for Christ's sake."

When we got older we took turns puking our beer in the swing mud until we trained out stomachs not to do that too often.

That's about it for swings.