When Jim Holman retired last year as a newspaper editor in Oregon and settled with his new wife in Hunt Valley, he never thought he'd launch a second career as an aerospace engineer.
Holman, one of hundreds of volunteers who showed up over the past few days to rebuild a playground at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Family Center at Stadium Place in Waverly that was destroyed in a fire last September, was assigned to help assemble a facsimile of a rocket, part of the playground's elaborate new climbing equipment.
And he could not have looked happier, despite what he said were grueling 14-hour days.
"He gets to be a rocket scientist for a week," his wife, Kristi St. Amant, said Saturday, as she bustled about in a yellow construction jacket, flattening a walkway. She was equally proud of her son, Justin Kinsley, 23, who is the site's safety captain.
The destruction of the sprawling playground, built in 2005 by more than 3,000 volunteers on the site of the old Memorial Stadium, was "a pointless waste," St. Amant said.
Money for the original $350,000 project was raised through fish fries and other activities. Officials suspect that the blaze was set, but no suspects have been found.
If all goes according to plan, the site's reconstruction should be finished Sunday afternoon. The rain that bedeviled the project since it began last Monday has proven to be a surmountable obstacle.
"We kept on going," said Kate Scherr, a co-chairwoman of the volunteer committee. "People were here with mud up to their knees."
When finished, the playground will not look very much different than before, but there will be some improvements, said Marisa Canino, chairwoman of Friends of Our Playground, a group formed shortly after its initial construction to make sure it was properly maintained. Instead of the wood mulch that was there before, the site will have a poured-rubber ground surface, which is safer and, although initially more expensive, will save money and maintenance costs over time.
In addition, the composite plastic decking that was used in the past for much of the climbing equipment is being replaced with more fire-resistant material, Canino said.
Arthur Williams, 16, who knew many of the children who regularly played there before the fire, said he'd had no hesitation about volunteering for the rebuilding. "They'd say, 'Man, now I don't have a place to play any more,' " he recalled. "This is like their home."
