Saturday, February 28, 2009

let the games begin!

I have very fond memories of outdoor games. Capture the Flag, Capture the World, Red Rover, and numerous others that I don't even remember the names of anymore. It seems like we were always playing these games as kids. We'd have family get-togethers and that would be our entertainment. We'd play Freeze Tag out on Grandma's lawn, or Ducks and Geese in the winter, tromping out the "game board" in the snow. Go Go Stop, Mother May I, Simon Says, What Time is it Mr Wolf, Duck Duck Goose and Anti-I-Over. It amazes me that we had the energy to run around so much!

I miss those days. I miss the simplicity of it. We'd get hours of entertainment out of drawing a circle (world) in the dirt, with our own countries marked out, then throwing a stick to try and capture parts of the other countries! So very simple. I don't even remember all the rules anymore.

Or there was another game that I particularly remember playing on a family camping trip. No idea what it's called, and I don't remember all the rules or how it's played - I just remember that we each had our own circles and when you were captured, you'd lose your circle and have to join someone else.

Or there was another game I remember playing on our lawn. Two teams, each has a base - a line at their end of the playing field - and the goal is to capture people from the other team. You can free captured team mates by running over and tagging them - without getting tagged yourself!

I don't see my younger siblings playing these games as much. Perhaps it has gone out of style with all the new technology. I'd love to play a good game of Capture the World again, though...