games children play

did you play war as a kid? cops and robbers? cowboys and indians?

not me.

i was a goofy pacifist kid. kids like and maybe even need crisis games; it gives them a chance to play out mastery scenarios.

but i didn't like games that involved shooting.

and while i remember having a cowboy hat and a civil war kepi, the only games i can recall involving those props involved playing at long marches and trail rides. loneliness of the prairie. bad rations. lots of marching and drill.

no shooting.

we played "rescue the lighthouse keeper before the storm surge and get him to his emergency appendectomy".

seriously. i remember being nine years old on the playground and shouting to the other kids over the imaginary wind and waves to ROW HARDER!