PAA. Short for
Playground Appreciation Association.
At its peak, a group of 20 or so
members between the ages of 16 and 22 who would
congregate at local
playgrounds and
schools to play
tag.
The PAA was located in and around the
Minneapolis, MN area of the United States. Members would travel for up to an hour and a half to visit a wide variety of
playgrounds.
Players would execute amazing
jumps and
stunts, such as the
Portman and
Jason Waye, to tag their
prey,
evade capture, and impress one another with outstanding physical
prowess.
Preliminary attempts were made to produce a video which would highlight the
exciting and
dangerous aspects of tag that were considered very
fun by its participants. Although early copies of such a
video exist, no
superb collection of footage was ever released.
The PAA was active over a period of almost 4 years. The association was created when the founding members stumbled upon
Lone Lake Elementary School some 50 miles out of Minneapolis. A period of time from 1997 to 1998 is known as the
golden age of tag, where PAA members were enthusiastically pushing the envelope and changing common conceptions of tag as a game, a sport, and a
lifestyle.
The last recorded PAA-sponsored game was sometime in late 2000.
Injuries were light, with only a few skinned knees and one mildly twisted ankle.
One
outstanding aspect of the
PAA was the
maturity of the group, notably their respect for
law enforcement officers when they occasionally arrived on the scene.
More information can be found at http://mpls.k12.mn.us/~eswalker/paa, the PAA's homepage since 1997.