Nov. 08, 2002 - 21:00 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Let's Pretend

As little children I think we all occupied an adult world the grown ups didn't suspect was there (they had forgot). In my mind and imagination I was always at least six foot two with shoulders four foot wide, quick on the draw with catlike reflexes. For a long time when we were little we had wars with each other using cap guns. That was always good for a pleasant afternoon of bickering, "I got you, you're dead." "No you didn't, ya missed me." "I ducked your bullet."

We grew a bit, our games of pretense swelled. A big brother and an uncle or two showed us how to make rubber guns, Using as ammunition bands of rubber cut from old innertubes. The resounding thwack officially incapacitated the receiver for a while -- no one would be dead for long though. The recovery rate was a very rapid thing, bordering on the miraculous to say the least. All a guy had to do was to argue himself back into the game -- maybe as another character. The stage of the imaginary world was ours to do with as we wished.

Once in a while we kids would gather up garden hoses and hook up to nearby spigots and had a grand water war. Neighbors would keep windows closed on the fighting front.

I remember one summer I spent most of my time across the street from our house. The boys across the street had some kind of maple tree there which had very strong limbs some with a nearly horizontal aspect. Forks in the limbs came in handy too. In a sense we nested up there. Brought stuff up in a bucket with a rope tied around the bail. Food, books, toys,candy, once in a while soda pop, maybe some whittling material to be fodder for our jack knives. At times we were some form of The Swiss Family Robinson, other times the tree was a ship far at sea. Those of us who were nimble and coordinated would be as high in the tree as the limbs would bear. Once in in a while a shout from above would resound, "Land ho !"

The leaves would filter a light rain to a certain extent and let us feel that we were braving a storm at sea. It was neat to be up there when one of those seldom seen windstorms would come up, feeling the movement of the big limbs. Usually there would be rain following that -- heavy enough that we would climb down and seek shelter on their front porch. But the games went on, we were castaway on a barren island and traded with the inhabitant for cookies and iced tea.

It seems to me that we were training to be grown ups in a super fun way.

Tree or not our life in our heads might have been at a more commonsense level than the adults. We seemed to have few disputes (mad in the face type) and differences were settled amicably, both sides grudgingly giving an inch now and then. The only fights I remember, real fights, were the ones we would be egged into at school. But when supper time came we again became sons of our parents and embraced civilization and later on a comfortable, secure bed. That is until we grew up enough to play under the arclights at each intersection, games of imagination thrived in that venue also.

I have been happy a time of two in recent years when my young grandson would hand me a plastic sword or something or another -- bringing me into his world -- and say Grandpa, Let's Pretend . . . . . . .

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