Keeping Childhood Alive! a trip back to Highschool PE

My weight watchers leader, Margaret Snodgrass, yes that is her name, made a good point at our meeting two weeks ago. The point she was trying to make was that as adults we don't play anymore. Playing, like being silly and doing things that are fun for us as adults that shake us out of the daily grind is something that we give up doing. At some point in our lives it no longer becomes socially acceptable for us to play. When does that happen? In my opinion it hapens sometime in our twenties when we're supposed to have jobs and be done maturing and be all grown up. Well i'm not going to let that happen. Whether we play sports, silly games, with friends, ride horses or even just relax and read a book. Playing is important and we should never forget that. So with this in mind here is something that I did this weekend to keep my need to play satisified.








Do you remember in Junior high or High School Gym class playing team games? Well I do because we did it a lot. Well this weekend some friends of mine resurected a game from our PE days. We played capture the flag. For those of you who have never played capture the flag its played at night, involves strategy, team building skills and well a lot of running and laughing! The object of the game is to capture the other teams flag and get it back to your own teams territory before they have the opportunity to tag you and send you to jail and hide their flag again. Its almost like hide and seek with a crazy mix of tag and war mixed in.

Well on Saturday August 16, 2008 we all met around 9:00 pm at a parking lot of a local safeway and carpooled to the game site. The park we played in was a humongous park with an elementary school attached. We divided in to teams at safeway and the games were on. After Hiding flags we were set to go. We had so much fun. I didn't get caught by the other team.

An hour and a half later we were still searching for each others flags and well our game got broken up. A guy nobody knew showed up at the park and started causing trouble. He was all thugged up and probably drunk although we had no way of knowing for sure. He started getting up in peoples faces and shouting at them saying he would kick their asses. Now I don't know about you but I would sure like to see a half drunk guy take on eight men and seven women. That would be worth the sight. So all the while this is happening one of the guys we were with called the cops. When the cops showed up we thought we would be in so much trouble. They were pretty cool about it though and said they didn't mind us being in the park after dark as long as we weren't causing any trouble. They did however apprehend the thug. Unfortunaltely for him he ran from the cops and then was found in the possession of some paraphanailia and some pot. The cops took a statement from some of us told us to have a good night and they were on their way with the thug in the back of the car.



We left the park right after,with both teams calling it a draw but also claiming victory. Some of us later headed for a local bar had a good time and then went home. Capture the flag was a success of which we plan to repeat. Childhood came back. I got a chance to play and well felt much better surrounded by friends and a good time.