Coral WilsonAdventure Playground in the Huntington Beach...

Coral Wilson

Adventure Playground in the Huntington Beach Central Park has the

basic ingredients for a good time: dirt and water.

It’s wet, slippery and muddy -- just the way children like it.

“It’s boy heaven,” parent Sherie Williams said. “It has everything

boys love: the hammering, nails, mud and water -- everything.”

It was Williams’ first time at Adventure Playground. With free

entry for adults, $3 per child, ($2 for Huntington Beach residents),

and with snacks, soda and candy for only 50 cents, Williams said it

is a lot of fun for a great low price.

“It was fun because with the mud slides, you go under the water,”

said Nathaniel Williams, her 8-year-old son. “And I fell off the

rafts. That makes it fun.”

Even 21-month-old Aaron Williams had a big smile on his face.

“It’s fun for the little ones too,” Williams said. “It’s all dirt

and sand and water. What kid doesn’t like that?”

Poles and planks of wood used as rafts provided hours of

entertainment as children navigated a brown pool of water. Other

children screamed all the way down the mud slide. A loud splash

marked every time a child fell off the rope bridge -- usually on

purpose.

On the other end of the dirt lot, children constructed forts at

various levels of completion. The simple wooden structures were built

on the ground or were held in the air by the sturdy trunk of a tree.

Children adopted their own corner and worked hard to add their

special touch.

“I’m making a coat hanger,” Anna Porter, 8, said. “I am trying to

make this stick out and then you just hang your coats on it.”

Amid the busy pounding of hammers, most said they were building

nothing in particular.

“We’re just nailing,” said 7-year-old Michael Semonsen, after

trying to put his nail in the tree.

Adventure Playground has been in Huntington Beach since the 1970s,

starting as a big pit of mud with a rope in the middle, said Mechelle

Tracy, 21-year-old recreation assistant.

“It’s so basic,” she said. “It’s one of the few places left [where

children] can do whatever they want. No one says, ‘Don’t get dirty.’”

After six summers working at the playground, Tracy said she is

reluctant at the thought of moving on.

“I need to grow up,” she said.

While most parents stayed dry, they also enjoyed the sun and

natural setting. Some built forts with their children and others

watched in amusement as their children’s creativity came alive.

“They can play without worrying if they are doing it right or

wrong,” parent Wendy Carmona said. “They can just create and

imagine.”

The playground allows children to play naturally, as her boys do

when left on their own at home or in the backyard, Carmona said.

“Dirt and water is always a good combination -- not for the

carpet, but for them it is,” she said. “They are using their minds to

play ... They have to make it fun themselves. And I don’t have to

clean the mess.”

* CORAL WILSON is a news assistant who covers education. She can

be reached at (714) 965-7177 or by e-mail at

coral.wilson@latimes.com.