Summer 1966
House Stalking
Introduction
If you don’t like to read the introduction, you can skip ahead to the main story.
I’m Tom Ford (not my real name). I have previously posted my stories over eight years ago, and you can find them in the May to December 2002 archives. I have over forty stories posted, so you might want to check them out.
I have recently reread them, and I have gotten the urge to continue my tales. However, for those who don’t know me and haven’t read the stories, let me give a brief introduction.
I grew up in a large family. I have four brothers and one sister, and countless cousins. I am the second born. I will tell my stories chronologically, and I will try to tell all my stories. I have kept a diary since I was 8, so most of the information I would give would come from that diary. Since I recorded all my tie-up experiences, I might be able to all that happened. I would warn the reader that not all my experiences are exciting or interesting. Some are boring, some are just trivial, some are just not fun to read. But I have many memorable experiences, many of which are exciting and enjoyable.
Some of the dialogue might not have been the exact words that we have uttered, but I try to recreate them as accurately as possible. And I sometimes ‘fill in the gaps’ with things that was the most logical in case of gaps in memory or record. After all, these are events that happened more than forty years ago, and many times, I have difficulty trying to decipher what I wrote when I was a little boy. Sometimes, what I remember contradict what I wrote in the diary! In this case, my diary will prevail. And sometimes, two things that I wrote contradict each other. I will try to remember what is accurate in such cases, but I apologize if I slipped and inadvertently wrote contradictory things on my stories.
Here are the cast of characters that were involved in our games. Most of the first names have been changed, and all surnames were changed.
Tom (9)
Andrew (10), my elder brother. He is de facto the leader of our little group.
Frank (9), my close and dear best friend.
Donald (9), my cousin
Angela (9), the first girl to be involved in our tie-up games and my sister Betty’s best friend
Chester and Jay (10) – twins who were our close friends
David (10) – Andrew’s best friend
Robert (10) and Jerry (9) – friends who lived near my great grandparent’s home. We played with them during our summer vacations.
Here are some characters who aren’t directly involved in our games, but were indirectly involved
Betty (8), my younger sister
Barney (7), my younger brother
Maggie (8), my cousin and Donald’s younger sister
Henry (8), Angela’s younger brother and my close friend
Nancy (8) and Cathy (7), David’s little sisters and friends of Angela and Betty
Sometimes, our parents got involved in our games as well.
Here is a summary the stories posted in 2002.
The tie-up games began when I was nine years old in the spring of 1966. It began with just me, Andrew, and David, then with Donald and Frank joining us. Then the twins Chester and Jay became part of our little tie up gang. The groupings and teams became more or less permanent, with Andrew, David and the twins on one side, and Frank, Donald and me on the other. We began to count our wins and losses, make rules, and during this time, more often than not, we lost.
The basic rules of our tie-up games was that one team would try to catch and tie up the other team members. If one team succeeded, they should leave the other team alone for half an hour to give them a chance to escape. If they failed to escape during the allotted time period, the captors won. If the captives escape, they can try to capture their captors, and if they succeeded, they must also give their captives time to escape.
This was what we call our “regular games.” Then there were other tie up games that didn’t conform to these rules. In our regular games, a game can be started at any time by anyone of our select group, and you’re not allowed to switch sides. In our other games, we played games such as “cops and robbers”, “cowboys and Indians” and “capture the flag”, games that we played before we started our tie up games, and after we started our regular games, we incorporated tie-up elements in it. The groups in these games were jumbled and did not conform to our permanent teams, and the rules of each game were different.
Other pertinent rules were the nine-year-old rule that was enforced by my parents and aunt and uncle. The rule simply meant that you must be at least nine years old before you could be tied up. That meant that the younger kids could interfere at will with our games and they wouldn’t have to worry about retaliation. In fact, Henry, Betty, Maggie, and Barney regularly interfered our games. They would untie captives, help capture others, spy on us and report to the other side our plans, etc. We didn’t mind as long we can get advantages by their interference.
Angela was the first girl in our group. We initially resisted her inclusion to our little group but she was persistent. She was at first grudgingly admitted into our group, but she quickly won over all or most of us in a short period.
We also continued our games when we went on our vacation to my great-grandfather’s farm. We were able to convince the parents of our friends to let them go with us, so in our small tie-up group, only Chester and Jay were not able to go due to having different vacation plans. Luckily, Robert and Jerry, friends who lived near my great grandfather’s home, provided good substitutes for the twins.
Regarding clothes, this was 1966, we lived in a small community that was always a few years behind in fashion (even now), so all the females, unless otherwise stated, wore dresses or skirts and rarely wore trousers, even at home.
Now, enough of introductions. Let’s start with the new stories. They are basically a continuation of the stories that I have written, and I’m going to start where I have left off.