Mood:

Topic: Ponderings
In my youth, before I was a teenager, summer fun at my Uncle Albert's house always included two outdoor games: Freeze Tag, and Flashlight Hide & Seek. My cousins lived in Culver City and at their house they had neighbors on either side and across the street who were always willing to join us. Between, my cousins, Tara, Sheri, Adam and Kelly, and the three or four neighbor children, and myself, we had a nice large group to play games.
The games were simple. Someone was always IT, and that person ran around trying to catch the others. In Freeze Tag, when IT caught you, you had to freeze exactly where you were and hope someone else who was still free could tag you and defrost you. This was the most difficult version, since IT had to then freeze everyone. There of course were variations of this, such as, if IT caught you and you were frozen, IT got to count to ten and if you weren't defrosted by ten, then both of you became IT, and set off together to get the others. That was one variation, another was if IT counted to ten and you weren't defrosted by someone else you were defrosted automatically and then became the new IT. Regardless of the version, Freeze Tag had a well defined area of play, the front yard of my cousins' house, including their drive and the connected driveway of the neighbors to the West, from the brick flower boxes that defined the front porch to the street. You couldn't go further than that or you lost and were automatically IT.
Now, Flashlight High & Seek did not have a boundary, and the person who was IT had to keep their flashlight on all the time during the game. When IT found a hidden person, that person joined with IT to become a team. The Team IT then sought out everyone else to find the rest of the hiders. Team IT would grow until there was only one person left, and the last person found won. The second to last person to be caught was the new IT. This meant there was strategy in hiding. You were not allowed to move hiding places once the game started, and Team IT didn't have to tell you how many people were apart of it. You had to assume if someone was walking around with their flashlight on, they were IT. Occasionally, Team IT would split up, and send out one person with the flashlight on to ‘flush out' the hiders, tricking them to reveal themselves. This usually happened when there were only two hiders left.
Let's say you were hiding and you saw the flashlight. You cannot necessarily see who was holding the flashlight. If they were alone, you might come out of hiding and join Team IT so you won't be the second to the last one found and become the new solo IT. But, if they were tricking you, with all of Team IT hiding out of sight, and the "fake solo IT" coming around the corner by themselves and you pop out so as to be found to join the team, you could potentially walk into their trap and become the new solo IT. Yes, it happened often to me. My cousins new the best hiding places: behind the camper, in the garage next to the old beat up piano, under the deck setting near the Jacuzzi; it was very hard to find them. Occasionally, they'd head across the street and hide at Laurie and Timmy's house. Flashlight High & Seek never lasted very long though. We'd get two perhaps three IT swaps into playing and my parents would come out and say it was time to go home. Still, I'll never forget grabbing my flashlight before leaving home as standard equipment for going to visit my cousins on occasional Saturday nights in summer.