Just a few days ago the Utah Summer Games kicked off—there were fireworks and everything. This reminded me of my own Utah Summer Games experiences. However, they are not what you may be thinking—and there were no fireworks (usually).
One of the best things about the summer, for children, is the lack of deadlines—usually. In many cases, curfews are later (if at all), the days are longer, and almost every day is a Friday night waiting for another Saturday. Summer days are the best. At least, they were for me.
As a teenager in the small town of Manti, Utah, there wasn’t much to do if you didn’t have a car or a driver’s license. So, what to do? Night games.
Night games are a thing that I am sure most people are familiar with. Traditional games are Kick the Can, tag, Hide-and-go-Seek, or—our group’s personal favorite—Jailbreak. Now, if you are unfamiliar with any of these, they all have a similar premise for functionality: There are chasers and there are runners. That’s it. Pretty simple. One issue with Kick the Can is that you gotta have a good can. Also, nobody likes to chase and try to find a can in the dark. It sucks. Tag is fun. However, with tag, if you got an ‘It’ that just wants to pick on one player, it is no fun at all. No fun. ‘It’ just runs past anybody else so that their target can become the new ‘It’. That is not fun to watch two people stand a foot away from each other and slap each other senseless while screaming out, “You’re it!” “Now, you’re it!”
Well, it’s funny for about five minutes. Then, it’s just stupid.
Hide-and-go-Seek is good stuff. I like that one. Still, when you’re fifteen and older, it is more of a silly, childish game. Not suited for the likes of sophisticated adolescents with refined palettes for uppity-up entertainment. We needed something more engaging for our hyperactive selves. We needed to break free. We needed to Jailbreak.
If you are unfamiliar with this one, it is very simple: You have the ‘It’ (or possibly more than one ‘It’) and the runners. If you are tagged by an ‘It’ you go to Jail. Any of the non-It’s can free the prisoners by running up to the prison—which could be anything like a pole, or a tree, a shrubbery (yeah, a shrubbery. it’s a word), or whatever is the ‘jail’ and then yell out “Jail Break!” so that the ‘It’ people know that they have to round everybody up—again.
This is a great game. If the ‘It’ people get everyone captured, then the first people to get caught become the new ‘It’ (singular or plural). Then, everyone runs back out into the night to hide and run and laugh and play and just have a good time. It was one of the greatest Summer games we ever played. It was kind of funny because we always said that we were going to meet up to play ‘Night Games’ at the park, but it was always just Jailbreak.
For those who were seasoned veterans of the Night Games, we knew the rules and procedures. Anybody new to the games had to be indoctrinated educated, they had to be educated on how the game was played and proper procedure. We always knew who couldn’t hack it because they would either just disappear during the games (presumably they went home) or they just never came back again on other nights. It happened on more than one occasion when a newbie would become frustrated at being the ‘It’ that they would just leave. Walk away into the night. Eventually, someone would call out, “Is anybody still it?” If there was a, “Yes! It’s me.” then the games continued. If not, well… Well then, we would call everyone in to circle up and pick again.
The picking was one of my favorite parts.
Dallas Cox—for reasons I am unsure about—was our unofficially elected picker person. Others tired and would always fail. There was something about the fairness of Dallas and his delivery of the choosing that we all somehow came to an agreement about. Dallas would always be the one to pick. Once, he showed up late, and we had tried to muddle along without him and it had gone so poorly that we just brought everyone back into the circle to start again—even though we were already more than halfway through the choosing. Someone pointed out how unfair that was to just start again (that person was free from the ‘It’ responsibility). We all told him to just shut up and put his foot in. When all was said and done, the complainer was ‘It’. His indignation…
Karma, dude.
The choosing went as such (and could not be deviated from—’twas a cardinal sin to do so): All the participants would put a foot into a circular formation. For example, I place my right foot forward, the next player sets their right foot next to mine, and so on until a circle is formed by the final participant setting their foot on the other side of mine. Then came the ritualistic chant.
Dallas would lean into the foot-circle, point at a random foot, then move his pointer finger in a clockwise direction, punctuating each word (or syllable—’mother’ was a two-syllable, two-point word) with a gesture of indication toward each of our pes planus, while uttering the sacred mantra (in other words, he pointed at each of our feet whenever he spoke a word): “Bubblegum, bubblegum, in a dish. How many pieces do you wish? (at this point the indicated person was to provide a number, then Dallas would count out that number of feet and then continue the incantation)… Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. My mother told me to pick the very best one and you are not it, with a dirty, dirty dishrag on your big, fat, ugly toe.”
If you did not pay attention when it came time for you to pick a number, you were automatically ‘It’. If you challenged Dallas, or thought him unfair, you were automatically ‘It’. If you screwed up the circle because you thought the sacrosanct prattling rambled on too long (or ridiculous), then you were automatically ‘It’. If you argued about any part of the systems of operations, you were ‘It’ for multiple games. If you tried to cheat the system by leaving because you ‘forgot’ mommy wanted you home earlier, you were still ‘It’ and you got another penalty ‘It’ added on—we would even end a game and start again just so you would get your ‘It’ turn. This was serious business.
The park that we played in was the finest for our game. Was. What it is now is nothing like what it used to be. We would always gather by the swings, do the ritual picking, then the games began. One of the best parts of the game was that our park had a built-in jail. Serious.
The tennis courts had a huge chain-link fence around them, with only two entryways—each on opposite ends and sides. There were only two ways in or out (unless you were bold and opted for climbing). Plus, the point of imprisonment within the courts had an overhead lamp that illuminated the area perfectly. The ‘It’ could almost just stand around and wait for any would-be rescuers to attempt anything. They would be spotted a mile away. Like a real prison… Woah…
Anyway, the boundaries were The Park, itself. This was slightly difficult as the edge of the road to any point of grassy area differed from inches to feet. See, the parking spots for cars were basically an area of gravel that boarded all sides of The Park. If you left The Park, you were caught. The specific distance into the gravel that instituted automatic capture was subjective. Best idea was to just stay on the grass. Additionally, at high speeds, gravel can be an unstable surface to turn on—even on foot, and more than one kid went home bloodied by their own idiocracy. (I know what I wrote)
So, in conclusion… No. Not really. Well, sort of. Well, you see I had this grand plan for this week’s story, but it just kept going and going. Then I realized that I had another story that I had been wanting to write about—that would fit right in with all this other previously mentioned stuff—but it would make the whole thing even longer. And then I remembered about one story that involved me as a secondary character because Erich is the primary character—but, I can’t write it because it’s not my story. So, in conclusion (maybe), I will be posting a series of short stories that are all connected (with a guest writer) throughout the month. Also, I felt it important that the background of The Park be established, as they were an integral foundation for all that occurred there and for what I will be writing about over the next few weeks. Thus the ‘Park 1’. (it’s a combination of Part and Park, which, yes, I do realize just ends up being Park, but I want you—dear readers—to know that I actually put thought into it and that it’s not just some flippant idea that I figured would be a funny pun. I want the credit. I’m needy)
So, in conclusion (for realsies this time), apologies for this week’s narrative installation being more anecdotal rather than episodal.
Almost Heroes 