“Night Games” August 11, 2008
Posted by bluewendigo in Writing.Tags: Childhood, Games, magic, summer
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My nine year old daughter asks if she could stay out until 10pm, the kids in the neighborhood are playing “night games”.
As soon as she mentions “night games” i can’t say no. Torrents of memories crash over me as I remember past “night games” that i played.
We played a game that took up the whole length of the street. We were prisoners of war and we needed to collect certain items from different houses that made up our “escape kit”, things like berries from the Ferguson’s, a piece of bark from the Lambert’s or a rock from the Bradley’s.
Once your kit was assembled, you had to make your way to the escape zone, all the while avoiding guards patrolling the street with flashlights.
We took this seriously, hopping fences, hiding in the dirt under bushes, sometimes tearing our clothes, sometimes bleeding from scratches, all of it adding to the realistic adventure that we were experiencing.
The summers were full of promise, the days were long and the world was simple. In that moment was enchantment, an elusive sort of magic like trying to catch a whisper on the wind, or bottle children’s laughter or glimpse some of the fairy-folk in the twilight, the fading hours between day and night when all magic seems to happen.
All a kid needed was a bike and nothing to do, there were fields to cross like boundaries to a little kingdom. Promises were made to friends to be true forever, imaginary enemies were fought and overcome as a team of scrubby little youths with holes in our jeans and worn out tennis shoes, treasures were discovered and lost again. We roamed the streets at night like phantoms of innocence, finally crashing in our beds at late hours only to awake and start the process all over again.
*Sigh* I have to go back to work.
Jason
My favorite night game as a kid was called Commando. Well, we actually played it as teenagers. We’d split in two groups. Starting atat the same place, one group was on foot trying to reach a destination point. The other group was in a car trying to find us before we reached could reach it. The rules were you had to stay to the streets. It was awesome.
Well…. this post brought back a ton of memories. I remember playing hide-and-go-seek, kick-the-can and having night egg fights. Those were the good old days when the older teenagers would let the youngsters play. I don’t see kids doing that stuff anymore… what a shame.