Capture the Flag

My first crush was in 4th grade. His name was Scott. He was tall, had glasses, and looked smart, in a Rivers Cuomo kind of way (although I didn't know that then). He was so smart that he had his own groups for reading, math, and spelling, and I was really jealous.

The first time I actually had a long conversation with him was one day during gym. Our class was playing capture the flag in the woods behind our school. It was the most thrilling gym activity because we had almost a mile of dense forest to hide in while planning our tactics. Usually, all of my friends would hide out in the far corner of the forest and just chit chat for an hour, until the whistle blew, but on this day we decided we were going to actually strategize. I was chosen to infiltrate the other team's flag area, tag Scott out (he was the best player), and steal their flag. And it worked! Scott and I talked about the game while we were walking back to school (he was a good loser for a 9 year old boy), and I told him that I would study my spelling words a lot so we could be the only two in his spelling group.

Life was so much simpler then. Tagging a guy out in gym and then praising his spelling skills was all it took.

Anyway, I was running by a park this morning and I felt a longing to play capture the flag (obviously, I'm not mature enough to be a teacher!) But I may have a ctf party this Spring, because it's so much fun and brings backs so many good memories!