When I was small, I was not aware of any organized activities for children. We were simply turned loose to make our own amusement. There were not such things as little league, dancing lessons, etc. We played what now seems like perfectly harmless activities by today’s standards. We played hide-and-seek, a fantastic game called “kick the can,” where someone would kick a can as far and as hard as he could. Then, someone would find the can, bring it back and then he would get to kick it. This usually took place in a wooded area where the can would be more difficult to discover. This took up a longer time that it would seem.
There was the usual Americans vs. the Japanese and/or Germans. One time when we were playing Americans vs. Japanese, it was our strategy to take a prisoner and torture him until he confessed. It always fell to the lot of the younger playmates to play the enemy, and the older children were always high-ranking Americans. This particular time, the prisoner was ordered to take off his shirt. The torturer demanded that he (the prisoner) confess to the secrets. Of course, the poor prisoner had no idea what the answer was. The end result was that the torturer burned his stomach with a burning light bulb. There was no end of a problem between the American torturer and the poor prisoner’s mother. We all could not agree whether patriotism or injury in this case was the more important.
