What do army men, darts, wooden stairs and 3 bored boys have in common?
You might be thinking, "What the heck is he talking about?"
As I was growing up in North Conway, N.H., the most common type of home in the area was a Cape Cod style with a full basement. Most people never finished off the basement so the steps downstairs were usually raw 2x10's and the framing. At the bottom of the steps you usually had a concrete floor that wasn't finished either.
When I was about 10 or so my brother and I were at my best friend Don's house after school and his parents weren't at home yet since they ran a local business in the area. We all got bored, as boys do very easily, and we decided to combine some of the things we would play with to make a new game that "sparked" our interest. We came up with this:
Get some army men and lay them out on their backs all over the last 2 -3 bottom steps of staircase.
Grab the most expensive darts your father owns from the dart board on the back of the door.
All 3 kids run (WITH DARTS IN THEIR HANDS) to the top of the stairs and turn around, giving one kid the 9 to 12 darts you've all collected.
Each kid got a turn with the handfull of darts to try and toss them, one by one, down the staircase and stick into the field of army men.
Once the kid threw all the darts all 3 kids would run down and count up the dead army men, keep score with the chalk and chalk board beside the dart board, collect all the darts and do it all over again wth the next kid. First one to 20 wins!
Oh, there was one more rule.....Once you hit 5 army men in your turn you could then go for extra points by tossing the dart completely past the lowest stair onto the concrete floor. This would cause a great spark, completely dull the dart along with sometimes taking a dime-sized chip out of the concrete.
Also, you may not know this, but when we missed the army men on the stairs just to the left and right of them......the darts would stick into the stairs! We did this for hours not realizing the destruction we were doing.....boy there sure were a lot of dart holes in the lower 5 steps as well as chunks of the edges of the steps taken completely off from poorly placed lobs of the darts. We got in SOOOOOOOOO much trouble that day!!! Wow. I don't think they ever did replace the steps or refill the holes in the concrete the entire time they lived there. I think they left it as a reminder to us of what bad behavior looks like!
Lesson: Kids, just don't do this!
JC
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Comments 5
This one escapes my but it must've happened. It's too clever a game to be made up alone in a story. What a fun idea for a bunch of idiot kids!
I guess if I had known this back then my friend you all would have been filling those holes until they looked good as new! Good idea to wait!
Love, Mom
Army Men,,,I remember my first purchase of a mail-ordered product was from the cartoon in Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum or the back of a comic book,,,but the offer was for 250 plastic army men. I already had some but thought WOW 250 more!!!! When I finally got them, they came in a box no bigger than a pack of cigarettes,, Hugely disappointed. They met their demise, valiantly, at the hands of a neighbor boy who employed fireworks in his acts of mischief
I love ya Justin, but I gotta say I'm glad I wasn't your mother - I'd have probably croaked from apoplexy along about the time I saw my house being darted to shreds
So, what is the big deal? We boys will be boys; and I was taking my turn with you that day, Justin. You bought yourself a memory about growing up.
