, Research Paper
The Night Of The Big Game
Running through the dark night in a furious panic my body fell stumbling down the hill in a forward summersault before halting. Some kids thought hide and go seek was a game for the feeble minded, nevertheless; I loved it. I still continued to meet at our local park every other Saturday just for this very reason. As I jumped up and broke for the base, with all my might I hustled for the position of safety and succeeded.
I yelled, “Home free”.
Playing hide and seek through out my neighborhood was one of the most
enjoyable things for me growing up as a child. Every person in this block new of each
other and it was a very friendly neighborhood. Which made this the best block to play such a game, when you need to utilize other people’s front yards.
This wasn’t any ordinary game of hide and seek. Where one-person counts and the others hide. This was intensified by creating teams where one team being the hunters who protect home base and the hunted who are trying to reach it before being tagged by the hunter.
It was a hot summer night and all of my friends and I had decided to get a big
game of hide and seek going down at the park. This was going to be the biggest game we had ever organized. This game consisted of about 16 people, which was a lot for the size of our neighborhood. This had been what we all had prepared for. All those late nights in the neighborhood strategizing and organizing plans to safety. Finally their was chance to prove our skill at this game, hunters versus the hunted.
I remember a couple of my friends that I played with that night. Alicia, who was
the ruffian of the hood, was fourteen and a lot bigger than I was. Chris, who was the slimmest and the tallest of the bunch, we called him the beanpole. Andrew, who had been a long time childhood friend that always wanted to be in the army; this game obviously gave him the inspiration. Lastly, I remember Tess. She always had a thing for surfing, and ended up leaving for Santa Barbara when we got into high School.
When we got to our destination, central park, we established where the home base was going to be which were the restroom stalls, since they were centered in the park. We then established where our territory of limits extended. There are positions in hide and seek that if you are caught there, you are automatically disqualified. An example of this would be if you were caught in the out of bounds territory that you would be out of the game. Next, we gathered and split into two teams. Eight against eight would equal pure intellectual and strategic competition. This park was maybe the size of two football fields, which is not a lot of ground coverage when you’re dealing with teams of eight.
My team ended up going out into the field first to be hunted. We had a good chance of winning since we were the fastest kids on the block. I remember going to a low-key spot with my good friend Andrew. We remained out of sight for a good thirty minutes before we decided to go for home base. When we approached the center of the park near the backside of the stalls, we were alerted to an enemy leaning on the wall guarding that section. We had found out that four of the members from our team had actually reached home base and two had been captured. We were the last two survivors and the final rule to this game is that you need more than half of your team to reach the base, to be the victorious winners. That meant that either Andrew or I was going to get to that base. In a heated moment Andrew snapped.
“Charge” Andrew released from the top of his lungs.
In a panic I broke for home base as fast as my legs could carry me. Andrew had managed to attract all the attention while releasing his unsuspecting cry. Home base was in my sight, and it was only a matter of moments until I reached my victorious goal. Meanwhile, I was able to be the fifth and final vote for our victory. This was one of the most memorable games for it would be my last.
I never ended up playing this game again and I probably couldn’t tell you a specific reason why. Maybe it was because we all grew up. Or maybe because it was the last summer before we were supposed to open a new chapter in our lives. But for some reason, this event will always stick out in my mind as a wonderful and joyous occasion. Kids being kids without a worry in the world, what I would not give to have that feeling once again. This is why I guess I loved that game.