Hide and Go Seek...

I assume kids still play this game, not the version with babies where you play "peek a boo," nor the one where kids hide under the covers with their foot sticking out and think you can't see them. This is the more serious game.

Our neighbors directly to the north through the field, were the Williams, a wonderful family. They had two older boys, then Dwight and Anna. Dwight was a year or two older than I and Anna somewhat younger.

One day we were playing this game in their yard, and Anna was "It." They had a garage out back of their house that actually used to be a home. Dwight had a great idea for a place to hide. He led me to the kitchen in this old home and showed me my hiding place...an old flour storage drawer that would tip out from the top when you pulled the handle. I can't think of what to compare it with and doubt they make them anymore. They used to dump a big bag of flour into it, probably 25 pounds, because everybody baked back then and they needed it handy.

Anyway, he somehow talked me into squeezing into this bizarre bin, shut the drawer and then hopped up into the top shelf of the cupboards and locked himself in somehow, on purpose mind you. We heard Anna come outside and call our names for several minutes. Boy, did we fool her! She didn't even get close to our hiding place. Her heart not really being into the game, she got tired of looking and went back inside the main house. She probably thought we had run away and left her alone, like older siblings do sometimes.

A few minutes later I told Dwight that I needed to get out of there real soon (being cramped in like a sardine, knees and elbows bent) He said he was having "a bit of a problem." The lock to his location was very tight and he couldn't reach it. I tried and tried and tried and tried to throw my body forward enough to tip the drawer open but couldn't use my bent arms to grab anything, so the drawer just fell back into place over and over and over and over.

He tried to cheer me up by saying he'd keep working on it, and his parents should be home in a bit. After what felt like HOURS but was probably half an hour, we heard his parents arrive. They got out of their car and were talking to each other. Both of us yelled over and over at the top of our lungs, HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP! They heard voices and came searching.

After they helped me out, I ran home as fast as my bent body would let me, didn't even stop to say "bye" or "thanks for the fun". I also didn't want to wait around for any whopping Dwight may have gotten. He was pretty tough, though. He used to run all the way through the hayfield barefoot, even over rocks and fencing. Very bright kid. He actually became an emergency room doctor. Maybe he felt like he wanted to spend his life trying to save people's lives to make up for the time ours came close to ending. (If you ever read this, Dwight, it's ok. I've long since forgiven you HA and hope you didn't get a whopping after all :o)

Kids! It's lucky any of them survive.