Disconnected
realities
What’s on television
does not match my life
Home
from 30 minute tour
that blossomed to 60
Neighbors
Fourlegs
Plans to dismantle
then reconstruct
a play system
from Forestview Lane
to Brookside Circle
From manchild legs covered in hair
to towhead toddlers
Willing hands
muscle
traded for connection
brats and beer
Is real life better than what’s on the screen?
So, did Henri go down the slide?
Wow! What a story prompting a flood of memories!! Some time long ago a community group constructed a massive playground feature for a nearby elementary school. Pressure treating in those days used “copper-gallium-arsenate” as the preservative. As such, the protocol for building the apparati required serious scrubbing with a strong detergent solution to remove the compound from the surfaces of the wood. Within two or three years, the proclamation was to dismantle and discard all the structures! The contention was the arsenic component in the preservative was leaching into the soil. Dismantled it was! Kurt Vonnegut might have offered, “And so it goes...” I can only hope that your community project is happening in a more pragmatic environment! Incidentally, after the “Great Dismantling,” it was learned that background levels of naturally occurring arsenic in our local soils are not appreciably less than in the presence of c-g-a treated wood.