The Antietam Drive Sports Complex

"Antietam Drive. To the untrained eye, it's just a quiet, rain-soaked suburban Jersey road on a rather warm February morning. To a man whose lived almost his entire life on this road, save for the first few weeks of infancy & four years of college not in a row, it's the still remains of an Olympianesque game arena. Sure, there are still children who live on this street, & I'm sure they love it dearly, if not now then when it's their turn to grow up. But they don't play on every square inch of it like my friends & I did. They can't look at that picture & point out at least 5 prime hiding spots. Or a bike ramp, or a finish line, or second base."

Thus begins Mike Fireball's historic tour of his neighborhood, seen from the unique perspective of a kid at play. Here's more:

"After dinner, my front porch there became the jail for a nighttime game of what we called Jailbreak, & what you probably know as Manhunt or Freedom or Spring... or whatever you called the "1-2-3 you're my man no breaksies" variation of tag with teams. Odd how an entire country of children can play the same game & call it by a different name. Not as odd as the fact that an entire country of children used to pretend that the floor was lava & the couch was some kind of magic, lava-resistant boat, but still something of note."

See also Suicide


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith