the.com/monkey bars
The first place you learned that falling is just gravity's way of grading your grip.
means A playground frame of horizontal bars or rungs that kids cross hand-over-hand, swinging through the air like little primates.
from The name is pretty literally descriptive: the apparatus got tagged 'monkey bars' because swinging hand-over-hand across it makes a kid move the way a monkey swings through branches. 'Monkey' had already been used in English for over a century as a playful stand-in for mischievous, climbing, swinging behavior before it got bolted onto this specific piece of playground equipment, likely sometime in the early-to-mid 20th century as metal playground sets became common in parks and schoolyards.
- origin
- invented 1920 by Sebastian Hinton, Gilbert's son
- upper body truth
- adults fail them more than kids
- playground hierarchy
- crossing them was the original social currency
- engineering flaw
- height chosen for kids, bruises chosen for everyone