![]() ![]() One of them turns on the radio-Shaggy is playing ( Honey came in and she caught me red-handed, creeping with the girl next door)-as the others feel in their pockets to make sure the candy bars and soda cans are still there. ![]() Three boys lounge in the only unbroken chairs around it they are the oldest ones here, so no one complains. It’s still morning, but someone has already started a fire in the tin drum in the corner, perhaps because it’s late fall and wet-cold, or more likely because the kids here love to start fires. “Why are you rolling tires into the water?” my son asks. The center of the playground is dominated by a high pile of tires that is growing ever smaller as a redheaded girl and her friend roll them down the hill and into the creek. The ground is muddy in spots and, at one end, slopes down steeply to a creek where a big, faded plastic boat that most people would have thrown away is wedged into the bank. It’s only two years old but has no marks of newness and could just as well have been here for decades. The Land is a playground that takes up nearly an acre at the far end of a quiet housing development in North Wales. “Not exactly,” I tell him, although it’s inspired by one. “Is this a junkyard?” asks my 5-year-old son, Gideon, who has come with me to visit. When the heavy gate finally swings open, Dylan, the boys, and about a dozen other children race directly to their favorite spots, although it’s hard to see how they navigate so expertly amid the chaos. He tries to figure out what half an hour is and whether he can wait that long. ![]() “The Land! It opens in half an hour.” Down a path and across a grassy square, 5-year-old Dylan can hear them through the window of his nana’s front room. A trio of boys tramps along the length of a wooden fence, back and forth, shouting like carnival barkers. ![]()
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