Remembering the Troll

The small island towns of Si Phan Don (literally “Four Thousand Islands”), in the Mekong River of Southern Laos, typically have a single paved road - a main drag with all the shops, guest houses, and city municipal buildings. If you find yourself off that paved road, on one of the dusty alleys or side streets, you’re sure to encounter at least one animated groups of kids at play. And that I did, every day of my stay on the laid back islands of Southern Laos.

I’d usually hear them before I saw them… squeals of laughter piercing the air, as more often than not, a flip-flop came flying from around a corner. Without video-games, TV’s, or sometimes electricity, these kids used their imaginations to fill the long summer afternoons. A favorite game seemed to be something akin to the game of marbles. A circle is drawn in the dirt. Each Player places a bottle cap in the circle, then removes both flip-flops from their feet. The first flip-flop toss seems to be a mandatory defensive play. Like the ring-toss at our County Fairs, the flip-flop is gently lobbed into position in such a strategic manner that their bottle cap will be protected. The second flip-flop toss is the kill-shot… the intent being wing it, usually side-arm, so as to blast the other players’ bottle caps out of the circle. After the first round, any remaining players continue the kill-shots until only one victorious bottle cap remains. Squeals of laughter ensue.

Some may scoff and say that silly game would be boring after 5 minutes. I, on the other hand, was reminded of the many crazy games my friends and I made up during those after school hours in Pullman.

My good buddy Spence (now a high school science teacher) was always in the mix. Many of our best games were his adolescent brain-child…

For the longest time, Spence had a concrete-floored unfinished basement in his house on Sunnyside Hill. Over the course of a couple of afternoons we dreamt up an elaborate game of tag where the participants weren’t permitted to set foot on the concrete itself. You were, however, permitted to hop around on, and even move around, the pieces of cardboard we’d cut out of the moving boxes his mom stored in the basement. All non-concrete surfaces were in play… walls, the ping-pong table, even the mini-trampoline we drug down there. There were two ways of becoming “it”… a misguided foot on concrete, or being tagged by the one who was currently “it”. Great strategy and acrobatics were required to be successful. How no one slipped and cracked their head open, I don’t know.

When in Montana during the summer, visiting Spence’s Grandparents’ lakeside cabin, we played our thoroughly Montanan version of America’s favorite pastime. The game involved, first, an hour or so of fishing the *expletive* sucker-fish out of the lake. Spence’s Grandpa (Bapa) always added the *expletive*. Sucker-fish, which I still don’t think is the technical name for the species, were an ecological plague to the lake and, Bapa would add, “no good for eatin’.” Anyway. We’d get a good bucket full of sucker-fish, which were maybe 8 inches long on average and the ugliest fish you’ve ever seen, then start our game. “Sucker-Ball” involved a pitcher and a batter. The pitcher would grab a suitable “ball” by the tail, and while standing next to a good sized tree, would give the nearby batter a nice-and-easy underhand “pitch”. As soon as the “ball” left the pitcher’s hand, he’d dart behind the large tree. The batter mean while, would never take his eye off the squirming “ball” flying through the air, and at just the right moment would swing his little heart out. When the wood of the bat made contact, guts, scales and eye-balls would splatter the tree. Squeals of laughter ensued. We could do this for hours.

On summer afternoons back in Pullman, we’d play a game called Man-Hunt, whose rules I can’t really remember. I think it was basically hide-and-seek, but we called it Man-Hunt ‘cause it sounded cooler.

And of course there was Kick-the-Can, which we obviously can’t take the credit for. Some genius child made this game up generations ago, but we played it so often it warrants mention. For those deprived readers who’ve never played Kick-The-Can, it goes something like this. You get yourself a can and a bunch of kids. Place said can upright in a small clearing… maybe some place with at least a 30ft radius of clearing around the can. One person is “it”, and while he or she counts aloud to 30 (Loud… gotta scream those numbers) with their eyes closed, the other kids scramble off and find hiding places. “Ready or not, here I come!” signifies the start of the game. The “it” person cautiously ventures away from the can in search of the kids in hiding. If a hidden little person is spotted, it’s a race to the can. The “it” person leaps over the can and belts out, “Over the can on So-and-So.” So-and-So is thus forced to sit in jail next to the can. This continues until all the hiders are in jail. BUT… if you, one of the hidden little dudes, gets to the can without being spotted, or beats the “it” person to the can after he’s spotted you, then you get to triumphantly Kick-the-Can. Literally. And then the person who’s been in jail longest is released. When everyone is in jail, the kid who has been there longest is now “it”. There are so many intricacies and strategies, I can’t even begin to touch on them… it’s best if you go find yourself a bunch of friends and play.

The snowy days of the winter months brought with it the added excitement of the start of Pig-Skin season. Pig-Skin was a favorite game of the neighborhood, and had the greatest longevity of any game we played. Before there was Arena-Football and the XFL, there was Sunnyside Hill Pig-Skin. Combine the non-stop brutality of rugby, the semi-orchestrated plays of American football, the mayhem of a demo-derby on foot… and you have Pig-Skin.

There had to be snow on the ground, that was rule number 1. Our favorite playing field was the front yard of Spence’s neighbors across the street. The yard was large by our standards… maybe 30ft wide and 60ft long. It sloped slightly across the width of the field, and the downhill sideline was bordered by a tangle of thorny bushes. One end-zone was always a mess with rotten apples hidden under the snow… courtesy of the now leafless apple trees above. The other end-zone was a barked garden with the occasional landscape stone to make it interesting. The funniest part of it all… we played maybe 4 winters worth of Pig-Skin on this field, and never once did we meet the folks who lived in that house. That’s Pullman for ya. They probably sat in their upstairs living room and sipped coffee while watching the neighborhood kids beat the living crap out of each other.

Mom and Dad never let me play football in school… too small, they said. Well, they couldn’t keep me from Pig-Skin. As soon as we hung up our phones, we’d put on our uniforms and run over to the field. Dressed in ratty sweat pants, four sweat shirts, a beanie, and old running shoes… we were ready for battle.

The game was played with an American football, and there really weren’t any rules. We split ourselves in two equal teams of about 4 a side. The play only stopped when one team scored, and then it quickly resumed with a kick-off to the non-scoring team. It was kind of like rugby with forward passing. At any given moment the ball carrier could pitch the football forward, backward, or laterally to a teammate. If you were tackled, you released the ball and whoever was closest from either team picked it up again. The best hits would send the ball carrier flying into the thorny bushes along the sideline.

Added to this craziness was “The Troll”. The Troll was a position we invented for our gangly unathletic friend Barney. And yes, his name was actually Barney. But quickly The Troll became a favorite of every player, and we each took a turn as Troll. You see, the only way we could get Barney on the Pig-Skin field was to give him something that required minimum exertion, but provided maximum satisfaction. The Troll roamed a 10ft strip of snow at midfield, and basically smashed anyone who came through his zone… typically the ball carrier, but pretty much whoever he felt like lighting up. Barney was a natural, and would blind-side you if you weren’t paying attention. You always had to keep one eye on The Troll. As I recall, if we ever actually let our friend Sly (who was always a head taller than the rest of us) play Pig-Skin, he was never allowed to be Troll.

The game typically ended when we were too exhausted, someone got seriously hurt, or when Spence’s Mom yelled from across the street that hot chocolate was ready.

Watching those Lao kids having just the best time in the world tossing a flip-flop, I couldn’t help but hope that kids back home are still making up their games of Pig-Skin and Sucker-Ball to while away the afternoon hours.