On the QT

Saturday, March 19, 2011

THE LAST GAME
was the title of one of my novellas. Its genesis was about the importance of neighborhoods in my generation's growing up. The neighborhood took on the persona itself.
One activity that we (and they in the book) participated in was hide-and-go-seek, as we called it. I suppose in Southern Illinois we didn't accept or know the meaning of the word seek, thus the superfluousness. But whatever its rightful name, we played in often.
The painting on the left is entitled Hike and Seek and, of course, made me think back to those days. Not that I have any great stories. Just pleasant memories of Spring/Fall/Summer nights when we didn't want them to end. We weren't ready for bed. We weren't ready to give up our friends so soon. And we still had plenty of energy.
I'm trying to recall the name of a Ray Bradbury story that used Hide and Seek effectively. It was called The Leavetaking. Thanks memory canal. It was a term I was unfamiliar with. Anyhow, at age 13 one friend was moving half way across the country. (Maybe because that's exactly what happened to me and my best friend.) They played their "last game" and the boy moving away, just left after his friend counted to twenty. That was their parting. I liked that.
Even as a kid, I liked the old Mitch Miller song "That Old Gang of Mine". Of course gang didn't have quite the connotation as it does today. But it would be fun to get all the old friends together for one last game.
But we might have to count to 50 these days before we could find a hiding place.

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