Summer Nights

It's nights like these that bring back old fond memories of childhood games.

Remember Mother May I? Someone, "Mother", would stand at the end of the lawn and everyone else would be "Child" players. We would take turns asking permission to make certain moves, such as: "Mother, may I take ten baby steps...or...Mother, may I take two tree falls...or...Mother, may I take three giant strides...or run until you say stop?" If you ever moved without her permission, like Simon Says, you had to go back and start all over again.

"Mother" would then say "Yes, you may...or No, you may not." The first one to reach "Mother" would be the winner. In retrospect, what an unfair game! And worse yet, there was some unwritten rule that if you cheated and got away with it, good for you. If "Mother" didn't see you do something, you got away with it. Probably not a very good game, all in all.

Then there was freeze tag where "It" ran around, and the person who got touched by "It" had to freeze in place until another player touched them and set them free. Goodness knows what this was about.

There was hide and go seek and a game we played about hiding behind numbered trees. It seems like there were something like 5 trees. "It" would say: "Pauline behind tree #2!" If that guess was correct, Pauline had to step out. If that was wrong, "It" had to guess again.

Before my time, there was Kick the Can, which sounds kind of fun.

My dad had a furry coat that he would wear, always approaching dark. All I remember about this game was how dang scary it was. We would tauntingly chant "No-o bears out tonight! Daddy killed 'em all last night!" Then he, or whoever was wearing the coat that game, came lumbering out while we all squealed our guts out. Once he somehow broke his finger playing this game and was so humiliated, he didn't tell us for years.

You might call it cheap thrills :o)