May 13, 1999
Let the title of this article be my battle cry ("battle" sounds belligerent, so I should say let it be my love-cry. Not the man-boy love of the pederast, but generic sweet love). I share this cry with society, especially with parents, teachers, the clergy (up to but not including the bishop level, which is more administrative), doting aunts and uncles, foster guardians, "nice" kidnapers who do in fact intend to return their victims alive, school-bus drivers, hired clowns, juvenile detention guards, and others who supervise children. Are you letting your children saturate their brains with the clanging violent clatter of television, music without melody, and the virtual world of video games? No doubt you are doing that. Harken then to my battle/love cry! Unplug your child for at least part of the day.Once your child is unplugged, he or she may still want to be entertained. What then can you do? If you are over the age of 30, as am I, then you probably remember a simpler time before children were plugged in to some electronic device during every waking minute. What did we do then? I know that as a young parsley sprout I did not merely sit and consume entertainment passively; nay, I acted out my own entertainment. We all did, because we had to. Rich kids with elaborate puppet stages and servants to operate the marionettes maybe didn't have to work so hard at it, but the rest of us did. Children today can certainly do the same, but they may require gentle instruction from us, their guardians. Herewith I offer up a sort of playscript of one of my favorite role-playing games from my youth. Don't be intimidated by the complexity; I assure you that the first time I played this game it was not so elaborate as it eventually became. That's the beauty of this kind of game. The script is not rigidly fixed. By playing it and altering it slightly, or even extending it and adding new characters, you make it your own. Please, by all means, let your children play it as often as they like. I call this game "Dick Tracy vs The Forces of Evil".
Equipment: 1 wristwatch (if you don't have a real one, make one out of a flat round lollipop head and your keepsake hospital bracelet from when you were born; it's probably in your mom's jewelry box). 1 large cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. 1 pillow (play this game in your bedroom or actually on your bed for increased gratification).
Scene: You are crime-fighting detective Dick Tracy. You are wearing a TV/radio-communicator wristwatch. You were knocked unconscious by a bad guy just before this game started. You are sprawled on a bed, a prisoner in an unknown location. You start to wake up, shaking the cobwebs out of your aching head.
Dick: Wh-where am I?
An unseen hand conks you on the head with a thick round stick (note: use the carboard tube to conk yourself on the head here). You collapse into unconsciousness again (note: it's fun to fall onto the bed as hard as you can). Ten or fifteen minutes later you start to come around. You realize that the bad guys must be watching you pretty closely, so you play possum for another half hour. Hearing no sound, you decide to make a move. You bring your communicator wristwatch to your lips.
Dick (whispering): Chief?
In that instant, an unseen hand conks you on the side of the head with a stick and (wham!) you fall limp and senseless. A few hours later you come to. This time you can tell for sure that nobody is near. You roll over and get up on all fours. Just as you start to stand up a sudden unexpected conk on the head is delivered with a stick by some unseen hand. You gag and fall in a bruised heap. Days go by; you dream of Tess Trueheart for part of those days. Other times you dream of watching the ballgame on your TV/radio-communicator wristwatch. Another time you dream of hoisting a tankard of ale with your band of merry men, which is strange because you are Dick Tracy, not some backwoods English communist. Finally you regain consciousness. You think about sitting up, but you remember the many conks on the head that you have received. Slowly you open one eye just a hair. Your clever enemy was apparently waiting for the smallest sign of life, for when you move your eyelid you receive quite a conk on the head with a stick; as with the other conks, you don't see the hand that delivers this most recent conk. A tidal wave of blackness engulfs the shore of your inner head, then the backwash carries protesting neurons out to the black hypothermic depths of the sea. Sometime during your latest round of unconsciousness someone must have conked you on the head because when you wake up you have a new lump that you don't remember receiving. Or maybe you simply lost count. In any case, this time you actually get up out of the bed and walk unsteadily to the door of this strange room. You open the door a crack and peer out into a dark hallway. Nothing moves. You open the door a bit further and stick your head out.
Dick: Hello?
Just then, an unseen hand conks you over the right eyebrow with a stick. Your arms fly up and you wheel and stumble back into the bedroom and dive unseeing onto the bed; wakefulness evaporates like a boiled drop of water. You wake up some unknown number of minutes or hours later with one eye swollen shut. Your tormentor or someone who has taken over for him laughs a laugh of rage and shoves a pillow over your face. You kick and fight for breath and finally push your attacker away from you.
Dick: Get off! Stay back! (Into the communicator wristwatch) Detective Dick Tracy needs assistance, over!
Dispatch (dispassionate professional voice): What is your location, over?
Dick: I don't know, over! Wait, can I take back that "over"? I've been unconscious quite a bit, over!
Dispatch (somewhat less dispassionate than before): You have my sympathy, over and out.
You are tired and out of breath, and the bad guy jumps in and conks you on the head with a stick. You flop backward onto the bed.
Dick: Gahhhh!
Darkness wraps your head like a dark blanket.
If your children are like me, they will not like this game: they will love this game. And so will you. In fact, you may find a layer of dust enveloping your television, boom box, and video game machine once your children partake of this irresistibly challenging game. May you and your children enjoy years of unfettered innocent play.