One game we played when I was a wee lad was Guerrilla Warfare. It was just like frisbee, only more painful. Much, more painful.
The armies were evenly divided. Six combatants enlisted per side, with each varying in size, age and skill. My platoon for all intents and purposes did not want me.
As a third-grader, I was the youngest, smallest and goofiest when it came to coordination. In other words, I was an easy target.
However, for this particular sortie I was useful, at least that is what my teenage “comrades” told me. They said I would be the “decoy,” while I thought of myself as being an incredibly slow target. The war game was “Guerilla Warfare,” and the weapon of choice was the “Wham-O.”
The Frisbee was a cool toy back in the day in California. The weather, sunny and warm, allowed the troops to skirmish at all hours of the day and night.
The strategy was simple: locate a soldier in the opposite battalion, launch your “Wham-O” and hit him. Anywhere. Whatever part of the body the missile directly hit was no longer used.
Example: nail a guy in the arm and he could no longer use his arm; tag him in the leg and now the guy had to limp everywhere until smacked again with the fast flying piece of plastic and declared “DOA.”
One army was declared the winner if they had troops remaining and the other band of boys did not.
Ten minutes in and the battle was a raging success, as I had not been hit yet. The word “yet” being particularly important, as I figured some time soon I would be drilled as I held the distinct honor of being the first casualty in every “Guerilla Warfare’” conducted on our street.
Darkness settled on the battlefield.
“Kraig, go distract them.”
“Uh. No.”
“Kraig, we need you to distract them so we can see where they are hiding. When they attack you, we will see their positions and assault them.”
“Uh-okay.”
I left my position (hiding behind the biggest, fattest bush on our side of the combat zone) and ever so slowly sauntered to the frontline.
Scanning left and right in an effort to locate the enemy, I was secretly happy that I could not.
“Kraig, stop right there,” a voice in the darkness whispered.
I did.
Nothing. Not a single movement from the other squad.
I first noticed the sound while glancing back at my comrades (and again I use that term loosely). It was not a loud, noisy sound mind you, but a barely audible “whooo, whooo, whooo.”
I completed an about face to determine direction, wind speed and velocity of the incoming missile just as it acquired its target.
Me.
The largest, most deadly “Wham-O” Frisbee ever made tagged me square in the forehead.
It was not the standard size “Wham-O” all of us were using in battle. No, somehow someone smuggled in the mother of all “Wham-O’s,” the projectile that weighed five pounds before flight.
The impact lifted me up off my feet and flat on my back.
Hence the name “Wham-O.”
“I killed the little kid!”
Indeed I believe he did.
I was an instant kill for the creep. Even my “Benedict Arnolds” whooped and hollered congratulating the enemy.
I lay on the pavement with the air and other internal organs knocked completely out of me.
My older brother took his sweet time checking on me and with typical, older, brotherly compassion said—“Aw, he’s okay. Get up Kraig and quit faking.”
Having just had my young life flash before my eyes due to the disc drilling me square in the noggin, I had not even entertained the idea of faking. Crying maybe, but not faking.
“I’m not faking you dummy. I’m dead!”
