Rowdy game of tag takes dad back to childhood

Last week we received a DVD from Netflix in the mail that hasallowed us to stream movies and such into our television from theInternet.

It's as though the 21st century was delivered to our mailbox.

The following morning began with a film festival of classiccartoons created by Tex Avery and Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Thekids and I laughed aloud at the antics of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd,Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner.

It was as though the 1940s were delivered to our living room.

The plot, as it were, of so many of these old cartoons is simple.It's the chase, the hunt. Elmer chased Bugs, Coyote chasedRoadrunner, Sylvester chased Tweety, and Pepe Le Pew chased anythingthat moved.

So it was disheartening later that same evening to watch my kids,some friends and a cousin outside playing chase. Or, rather,attempting some awful approximation of the classic childhoodactivity.

Their version involved standing still, whining and huddlingtogether, and calling "time out." Time out dumbs down the game andlevels the wildly uneven playing field. There is no pause buttonwhen running amok.

They had enough rules and regulations to keep a lawyer happy.

When I was a kid (more and more of my conversations with mychildren are beginning this way), I had cousins who lived in asprawling apartment community. We would play our version of tag - itwas strategic, it was covert, we were dressed like ninjas - untilall hours of the night, covering acres of land. We hunted each otherdown, ran until we thought our lungs would burst and, no doubt,annoyed every tenant of that community with our shrieking.

It's a simple game and I wondered if it were too simple for thekids of today with their Wii, Mario and their extra lives. So I tookover in my own backyard the other night. I called the gang together,went over a few cursory guidelines, mapped out the perimeter anddeclared myself "It."

We had a blast. We ran our acre in the dark, hid, sought andsquealed with delight (them, not me). The action more closelyresembled the chase sequences of Looney Tunes than "The FrenchConnection" or "Bullit," but it was exciting nonetheless. Nearly aweek later, I'm still icing my back on an hourly basis. Just likethe old days.

I feel my kids understand a little better now the thrill of thehunt, the excitement in a moonlit summer night. They seem tounderstand what motivates Wile E. Coyote and what scares Tweety.

A word of warning to all of you out there, though: the game waseventually called on account of bed time (mine, not theirs), and asI sit here and write, I realize that I may still be It. You can runbut you can't hide.

That's all, folks.

Richard J. Alley is the father of two boys and two girls. Readmore about him and his family at uurrff.blogspot.com. Alley andStacey Greenberg, the mother of two boys, take turns on Thursdaystelling stories of family life in Memphis. Read more from her atfertilegroundzine.com and diningwithmonkeys.com. Become a fan of"Because I Said So" on Facebook: facebook.com/alleygreenberg.