|
Library of Congress |
Your great-grandparents playing in the street as kids. They were probably playing tag. |
Kids chase each other. They have probably have chased each other since man could walk upright on two legs. Maybe it's some sort of Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest struggle. However you look at it, kids have always chased and ran away from each other.
A game of tag recently ended very badly for one girl in Fort Worth. Ashlee Aguilera, 15, was playing a variation called fugitive with her friends on Friday night when she was struck by a car. She is in the intensive care unit in a Fort Worth hospital.
It was a terrible accent and an obvious sign -- another one -- that today's youths are a reckless band of death cultists who will throw their lives away at the drop of a hat unless parents wake up.
Or so you'd think if you read the recent column in the Dallas Morning News that breathlessly warned clueless parents about their kids' peril.
"'Fugitive' is a dangerous game that landed Fort Worth teen in ICU," the paper proclaims. The column makes fugitive sound like some new crazy kid fad, like the latest way teens are getting high off cleaning supplies.
I played played fugitive several times growing up in North Texas, so allow me to explain it to you: It's an extended game of tag. And between sneaking booze from your liquor cabinet, attending pill parties or playing football, your kids could do a lot worse.
More »