We still have one of those here in Santa Rosa County at the Benny Russel park (you can Goggle it)... Son #2 fell running and split his face on the edge of a beam. Needed a couple of stitches. This was the incident I mentioned before where I suddenly realized the ER doc was asking "child abuse" questions and it REALLY pissed me off to the point where he apologized and said he had to by law.
... and look at that ridiculously safe rubber mat bridge thing!!!! In the 70's, it would be slatted with narrow round steel bars to step on, but spaced just far enough apart and high enough off the ground that if you missed a step, you'd plunge through but with enough forward momentum to snap a femur! 
Somewhat similar story with a babysitter. My parents went to CA and hired an agency to come in for the week. (Mostly because the local sitter wouldn't watch us because my brother and sister would fight but I digress) I happened to get the flu and the babysitter pulled some can of soup off the shelf that most likely expired years prior. For 20 years after I never wanted soup again. That also happened to be the same week that Ted Bundy murdered the girls at Chi O in Tally. That was a weird week. As a young kid I didn't grasp it all but knew it was a big deal.
It was probably the creosote they used on the timber that made them remove it.
Nice to hear the playgrounds in Michigan were like the playgrounds in Virginia. In summer you could have fried eggs on that slide.
Ah, creosote. That's another addition to things that kids these days will never know. I remember when I was young back in the 70's creosote would bubble up and drips would slowly crawl down the power poles (called telephone poles back then). I've even heard of older adults that would pull chunks of it off and use it as they would dip tobacco today. Never appealed to me enough to try it though.It was probably the creosote they used on the timber that made them remove it.
