7-23-09

Summer nights are for friends, fire flies, and flashlights

It is officially summer time.
Now, I love the cold weather but I also love the hot evenings as well. What makes me feel all warm and fuzzy is seeing the sun tuck itself behind the trees, turning the sky a calming pink-blue-gray color and the clouds slightly darker than the sky behind them.
Around this time of the evening there are a few things that I like to do. One of them is that I like to sit outside in the quiet. When I get the time to sit on the porch with a cold drink and a cigar and watch the dragonflies hunt gnats, watch the fireflies light up the wooded area around the pond and watch the sky turn from its pinkish blue to a dark purplish black, I find myself at complete peace.
When I was growing up, around the age of twelve or so, I lived outside during the summer. Really, my parents wouldn’t let me in the house at night.
No, the neighborhood kids and I would have to be dragged in or threatened with not going out the next night in order to get us inside at the end of the day... or night.
I lived in a neighborhood that had, let me count, about fifteen rug-rats plus me, my brother and sister. We all ran Woodglen Drive like a gang in the Bronx back in the ’20s
After dinner and dishes, our parents would let us out for round two.
Prior to all of us having to go in for supper, we would talk and plan phase two of our summer day.
Flashlight Tag.
The sport of kings.
This was a game that required great skill, a cunning sence of strategy, and physical stamina that would rival that of a Roman gladiator.
Flashlight Tag was based on the rules of regular hide-n-seek. The only differences were that you played outside, at night, in a pitch-black yard and used a flashlight to “tag” the person. You had to call their name when you spotted them.
As soon as the fire flies started to illuminate the dark air that held the trees in their place, we would start the game.
The first person “it” was determined by a tried and true round of paper, rock, and scissors.
Everyone would then decide on a “base” and we would set the boundaries of where we could hide. The latter was a rule that no one ever seemed to abide by.
We took this game seriously. Actually, at twelve years old, we didn’t have anything else in our lives that was serious and that was the beauty of it, there was nothing serious in our lives... no cares.
When the counting started, we scattered like cockroaches in a quickly light room. Some darted for a bush, others sought refuge under a car that was parked near the woods and there were always a few weak players that would just hide close to base so that they could run and be safe as soon as the “it” person turned their back.
Not me. I would climb trees, shimmy into drainage ditches and my favorite thing to do was to scale the back of a van and then leap from the roof of the van to the roof of the garage that it was parked close to. This would allow me to quietly go from one side of the peak of the roof to the other and watch the entire game unfold without being seen.
Sometimes a friend and I would switch shirts and hats so that when the person doing the “tagging” would shine the light on us and call our name, they would have the wrong person and we would be safe.
... Sigh.
What a carefree time. I miss it.
It was a great time of my childhood. I felt so alive then.
Now when I sit on my porch and smell fresh cut grass and watch the fire flies do their illuminated dance around the pond, I often find myself looking around the yard for the best hiding spots.
As soon as Ethan and Nash are old enough, I plan on introducing them to the game that their old man was once the king of.
Although now, I doubt, you will find me climbing into the drainage ditch in the pitch black or leaping around like Spiderman, but I will know the best places to find them.
Bryan Pinkey can be found hiding close to base or at bpinkey@nccox.com.