Things that don't suck: Being "It"

Dumbassachusetts has finally gone too far. Willett Elementary School in Attleboro just outlawed "Tag" at recess. So are all other chasing games, apparently, including flag football.

How should kids respond? Like this kid! >>
Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

I'll leave the comedy to Jon Stewart, because no doubt he's going to have a field day with this story tonight on The Daily Show.

Instead, here are my top-ten favorite games that I played in grammar school:

1. Red Rover. Run as hard as you can to break the chain. Nothing like a self-inflicted clothesline to get you ready for math.
2. Touch Football. Let's be honest. This is push football. As in, push as hard as you can, and watch the guy with the ball go airborne.
3. Dodge Ball. The best part of this game are the specially-designed balls with traction. You get hit in the face with a spinner, you're raspberry-faced for a week.
4. King Of The Mountain. I loved this game, but it always involved a pile of dirt. We played on the jungle gym, until Andrew Bourgard broke his ankle.
5. Wall Ball. You throw a tennis ball at the wall, and if your opponent doesn't catch it with one hand, he tried to run and touch the wall before you can hurl the ball at him as hard as you can, at his head. Of course, 9 times out of 10, they touched the wall and when he turned around, you hit him square in the balls anyway.
6. Chicken. It's hard to find someone that's light yet strong, or good at grappling, but when you find a winning combination, it's very rewarding to see your opponent face-first in the dirt.
7. Chump Whump. This is basically a game where someone grabs the ball, and you teckle them. Then another moron grabs the ball, and you tackle them. And so on.
8. Kick the Can. We placed a plastic soda bottle in the middle of the playing field for this one, for distance and sound effects. The best was when you kicked the bottle right into a defender's face.
   
9. Capture the Flag. This was by far my favorite game, as it involved both raw speed and stealthiness.
10. Hitman. We had a special needs kid named Stanley who we used to pay off to pull people off the jungle gym. He lived on a farm and watched pigs get slaughtered, so it didn't really seem all that bad to him.

Bottom line: If you want to outlaw chasing games, move to France. This isn't about bullying, it's about kids roughhousing at recess.