Steal the Flag

In a previous post, I talked a bit about what I called “epic steal the flag” games.

I am serious about the perceived “epicness” of those games. For those of you who were there, I am sure you remember the gravity and importance of those night time struggles. Peter (Blair), my best friend, would march out of his house as the sun was setting, and the neighborhood could hear western-gun-slinging-music playing in the background. Children would put down their toys and look to the cul-de-sac. Perhaps a tumbleweed would blow across the street.

It was time.

Here is how it would work:

About 12 kids would gather in front of our house. Peter, and I would then pick teams. I liked to stack my teams with speed and stealth, and Holly was usually one of my first picks (I don’t know if you remember that Holly, but as a gymnast with a little frame, you were good at both stealth AND speed).

Once teams were picked, Peter and his evil imperial team would to back to his house at the end of the cul-de-sac. His flag would go on their mailbox. Our team would stay at our house, with our flag tucked into the door of OUR mailbox.

The boundaries were always the same. The whole block was legal, so I could send someone around the outside of the block where they would then infiltrate behind enemy lines. The Croft’s driveway was the midpoint.

Now the games could begin. I usually sent someone around to the back of the block where they could try to sneak through to the back side. This let them free prisoners if critical people were caught, or steal the actual flag if an opening arose. One person would be set to guard the flag, or two if we got a couple of high value prisoners.

Some other tactics included placing a couple of the slower/smaller kids on the boundary line, but close up to the Croft’s house so that they would not deter enemies from crossing the line in the middle. Someone fast would then push through the middle of the line as far as they could go before Peter’s team would take up the chase. The goal here was to run just fast enough away from them that they could not catch you, but not fast enough that they gave up. If they were really close as you got to the boundary line, then you just might be able to draw them over the line for a few steps, and then the kids stationed on the edges would run in behind them to cut them off.

The beauty of that one is that after a few successes, they would be a lot more cautions about chasing us, and we could get deeper into their territory for our flag assaults.

Of all my summer memories, those steal the flag games were probably my favorite. Now that I am a parent, I wonder if I am letting my kids play enough. I used to be pretty free when it was play time. I used to be able to go pretty much anywhere within a mile or so from my house…I am sure that I would feel nervous about letting Chloe (age 7) do the same.

I guess my first question to my family is this:

Are we TOO restrictive now?

And second, for my parents:

We had a lot of freedom to be “free range” as kids…How did you do that? Actually, when I remember stories about you when YOU were kids, I wonder if you were more restrictive with US than your parents were with you. In that case, are we getting more and more controlling of our kids as the generations go along?