Mayor Dennis Dawes, of Chehalis, talks to crowds during the Penny Playground Time Capsule Opening Sunday afternoon in Chehalis.
I attended the Penny Playground time capsule event last Sunday at Recreation Park. Both my husband and I had personal connections to Penny Playground and remembered participating in fundraising efforts — both of us as students in the Chehalis School District at Cascade and R.E. Bennett.
My husband, Skyler, was actually in Mr. Frazee’s class at R.E. Bennett the year that we fundraised for Penny Playground. Mr. Frazee was responsible for the iconic Penny Playground fundraising artwork and Skyler thought maybe he had vague memories of contributing something towards the time capsule, so we made it a point to attend.
Of course, we also took our two boys, ages 3 and 5, so we missed most of the ceremony following our littles around the playground. I was so thankful for Will Rubin’s detailed follow-up coverage of the event.
What I loved about Will’s coverage was how he captured the connections that people have to the playground. Some of those connections are profound. Even as someone new to our area, Will was able to bring that emotional connection through to the reader.
That emotional connection and sense of pride for our beloved Chehalis Playground was palpable even on the playground itself that day. I even accidentally made another little boy very sad.
A boy about seven or eight walked up to me on the playground and said: “Hi! I’m Max! My mom helped build this playground!” He beamed proudly in his Penny Playground t-shirt as he pointed to a slide nearby.
“That’s so cool, Max,” I said in my best parent-to-strange-kid voice. “Are you gonna help your mom build the new playground this time?”
Max looked back at me confused: “What new playground?”
Uh oh. This kid didn’t know that the playground was being rebuilt. Oh no.
“Um ... they’re gonna upgrade the playground! It’s gonna be great. You’re gonna love it,” I replied, trying to backpedal a bit.
Max thinks for a second and says: “You mean … like … they’re gonna remodel it?”
“Yeah … and it’s gonna be great! So even more of our friends can play here,” I assure him.
He walked away very disappointed. This kid didn’t know how to feel about his playground — the one he felt personally connected to — changing. I have to admit, I don’t always know how to feel about it either, but I look forward to the upgrades, especially from my perspective as a parent. At any rate, I felt so awful for wrecking that poor kid’s afternoon inadvertently. Sorry, Max.
When we finally got a chance to peek inside, it was exciting to see the salvaged time capsule artifacts. I remembered some of the pieces and various fundraising efforts, but had completely forgotten about things like the Penny Playground rap! The 90s nostalgia vibe was strong with neon sunglasses and other era-iconic trinkets on display.
Looking over the original plans for the playground and watching some of the old VHS format footage gave me a whole new perspective on the playground. I was so young when it was built, I couldn’t really appreciate the logistics and the scope of the community efforts that came together to make the playground possible. To get to see that all as an adult, and now a parent in this community myself, was very cool.
And, I had no idea so many of the people I know personally were so involved in the original playground project. I work with Lauren Fisher and had no idea her grandma was such an integral volunteer behind the playground project. Seeing all the connections around the community, all in the same place, was powerful.
We are excited to see our penny added to the fence of the new playground. We’re so excited to get to share this development process — having been part of the original fundraising efforts as kids ourselves — with our own boys.
I can’t wait for our boys to be able to read all of our names on the penny in another 25 years, maybe when they have kids of their own, to be able to connect them to their own roots in the community, two and three generations deep.
It’s an exciting time to be raising a family in Chehalis. Learn more about the Penny Playground 2.0 project at https://chehalisfoundation.org/pennyplayground/
P.S. On the way home, my husband said: “Was that Mr. Frazee?” I couldn’t say for sure as I had been paying closer attention to the artifacts than the crowd. If that was you, Mr. Frazee, Skyler Voie says “hello” and still has the caricature you drew of him in his school memories book.
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Brittany Voie is a columnist for The Chronicle. She lives south of Chehalis with her husband and two young sons. She welcomes correspondence from the community at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.
