No, the title of this waste of cyber-space is not just what management wants to do to me on a daily basis, it is also the name of a great outdoor kids' game. This past Saturday evening, as my wife and I sat out in the backyard, I began to wax sentimental about my childhood. (Which my wife likes much better than when we sit in the backyard and I wax my shoulder blades and ears.) The three older kids were out and about and the youngest, Harrison, was tearing around the neighborhood with a bunch of his friends, playing flashlight tag. Watching that action put me in a nostalgic mood. As my wife will attest, I can be moody and "nostalgic" is one of the better ones. It sure beats "cranky" or "surly" or "extra crispy."

When you're very little, say five years or younger, being outside in the dark can be a bit scary. From age six through 22, it is exciting! From 22 through about 40, if you're outside and it is dark, you probably have some serious trouble like a broken-down car. When you get older than 40, being outside in the dark gets mostly scary again. But, if you're about 12, being allowed outside at night is great. In my old neighborhood, we'd use those hours to play Kick The Can. Now, there are lots of different versions of the game. In our Sauk-Prairie Wisconsin Cheesy League, the rules were like this: Everyone gathers around an empty Folgers Coffee can. A Butternut Coffee can is acceptable but no Maxwell House! In this day and age, with so much coffee coming in trendy little foil containers, designer bags, and plastic jug-like thing-a-ma-bobs, it would be nearly impossible to get the proper "CLANG" as you actually do the Kick part of the game. It is called KICK the CAN. Not, SWOOSH the AUTUMN HARVEST BLEND FOIL. Anyway, the person who is "IT" kicks the can and everyone scatters, like when your mother starts to talk about whose turn it is to pick up the doggie doo in the backyard. Everyone hides and "IT" has to hunt down each player. Once "IT" sees someone, "IT" runs back to the can, plants a foot on top and yells "1-2-3 on Skippy behind the gas tank that is painted pink with a snout and curly tail like a gargantuan pig!" (Yes, you did need to be specific because just about every back yard had one of those big gas tanks and not all were painted like pigs...some were cows. The one in our yard we left silver and gray and called it a space ship or Orson Welles' cigar case.) If you were caught, you had to sit in "jail" which was the front stoop of whoever's house you were playing in front of. (Attention to all English teachers: I know that is a poorly constructed sentence and, if you tried to diagram it, you may end up needing a chiropractor, but that's just the way it is...of...so, there.) Of course, you could escape from jail if a fellow player, as yet not apprehended, would run up and kick the can before "IT" could get there and call out the approaching liberator's name! The more players, the more fun...unless you were "IT." We played this game as long as our parents would allow. If the folks were playing euchre inside, we could go pretty late, outside.

When I got to high school, I found out there was a big Kick The Can game that took place out in the country at the home of a family named Frudden, which, I believe is German for "Sure come on out and kick the can as late and loud as you wish and you will be rewarded with chocolate chip cookies." Those country-side games were pretty intense and lasted a long time. It may surprise you to know that I was rarely "IT." I was a very good hider. In fact, there were many times that the game apparently ended without me being found. The sun would come up and I'd stagger out from behind a silo to find the remnants of a once-proud civilization. I choose to believe that I was a very good hider and NOT that they never looked in the first place. Although, now that I think about it, when our kids were all little, my wife would encourage me to play hide-&-seek with them. I'd find a great place...like squeezing myself into the dirty clothes hamper (I was thinner and more flexible back then.) and then I'd wait. Hours would go by. Eventually, I'd notice how quiet it had gotten. Coincidentally, my wife and kids saw a lot of movies in those years.

Well, tomorrow morning on FirstNews, if the lead story is about a chubby, middle-aged man with graying hair, being arrested for disorderly conduct for kicking a can, then hiding in a neighbor's shrubbery, don't worry. It's not some sort of weirdo. It's just me.

Okay. It is some sort of weirdo.