Outside the Frame: The Games we used to Play

My senior year of high school was extended almost a month due to a very uncommon snowy winter in 1994. Not only did our local school system shut down for weeks on end, the entire city of Lexington ran out of road salt thus turning our major thoroughfares into winter wonderlands. This chain of events led to a graduation date somewhere in the middle of June, but at the time, I reveled in the unusual winter break. My buddies did too. Back then, I had a close-nit group of friends that fit my life like the snug of a familiar slipper worn just right around the edges. These were the guys I had spent my short life meeting somewhere along the way. Some early on, some later in high school, but regardless of time and place, we were a band of brothers making sure the winter didn’t pass without the right measure of good times and good memories.

For the most part, our days off were spent with a monopoly board, a green cigar, and perhaps a late afternoon snow man tipping contest. Even though these days were unscripted, they were spent together; a tribe of free spirits unwrinkled by responsibility and uncertain of the future. Regardless of the games we played, the talks we talked, the time we spent, spring effectively replaced winter, summer came and went, and our tribe was spread from coast to coast, from north to south by the first hint of autumn’s falling leaves and icy breezes.

My nostalgic moment in part stems from a recent viewing of Stand by Me on AMC in which the movie is presented with facts at the bottom of the screen. This was the first time I had watched the movie in a decade, at least, and I was wrought with memories of my childhood. Memories that parallel the coming of age we see in Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern. Memories I am sure my friends share when they turn their minds back to those days, and memories I’m sure your friends share with you; no matter how old or young, distant or near. I watched that movie and remembered the proper retort to “Shut Up,” a retort I have shared with my 10-year-old daughter (I don’t shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up…blah) much to the dismay of my wife. I have caught numerous people with a quick simulated punch to the face and offered them “two for flinching.” I have reopened the debates concerning Goofy (If Donald’s a duck, Mickey’s a mouse, and Pluto’s a dog…then what in the world is Goofy?) as well as the most quoted line from the movie “Who would win in a fight, Superman or Mighty Mouse?” I watched that movie and remembered my coming of age so vividly that I was moved to open a file and start typing of gigantic snowmen, epic monopoly battles, stale cigars, lost electricity, and other wastes of time that become synonymous with childhood and so important to adulthood.

Our childhood friendships are very important to the lives we live as adults. While mine may resemble the camaraderie of the boys in Stand by Me, yours may be entirely different. The truth is simple, no matter how far we roam, we still visit our childhoods and remember similar events that helped create the man or woman we see in the mirror each day. The reflection, regardless of the age, still has the glimmer of youth and reckless abandonment you looked past so many years ago when your buddies were waiting for a ride to school, a trip to the ball park, or a night on the town.

I wonder sometimes how my pals are, the ones I don’t see regularly. I wonder if they also have similar nostalgic moments and find peace in knowing that no matter how far they tread, how long it has been, that our creed, whether spoken or not, was and is, anything, anywhere, anytime. Something tells me I’m not alone in this sentiment; that while our childhoods are only reviewable in reverse, that good memories need no reason to remind and good friends never leave the safety of the tribe. In the words of Chris Chambers…”Skin it.” Go Cubs! Just a thought.