Night Crawlers

We were nocturnal creatures. Starting with evening visits from Peter Pan (which were always after Wes went to his evening boyscout meetings - funny, he never had the outfit or acquired any badges) to Dark Town, Kick The Can, Night Crawler hunting, Camp fires - all sorts of night activities kept us prowling around in the dark. We also loved spy shows - Man From Uncle, James Bond, Get Smart, etc...

So we practiced stealth movement and spying. We would sneak down the front stairs and hide in the shadows of the darkened front room and spy on the grownups watching TV in the living room or talking in the kitchen. We even spied one night when the minister stopped by to visit, then retreated up stairs in time for Nenna to check up on us in bed (I imagine she and the minister were impressed by how well behaved and quiet we were). We were amazingly sneaky quiet and practiced our Indian move-without-a-sound skills. It was one thing to sneak and spy on the grownups - they were clueless. It was quite another challenge to sneak up on each other, especially in an old house with so many creaky floor boards. After we were all tucked in and checked up on, I would slowly carefully silently slide out of my bed and in a pushup position start tip-toe/finger tip crawling my way across my floor, into the hall, into the girls room, right up to Laurie's bed and "RAAAA" - scare the bejeabez out of her. Of course she would attempt the same maneuver on me. There were easier victims to be had, and we often practiced on them. Marlene sometimes attempted to try her hand(s, fingers & tip toes) at this game, but being just enough younger, she didn't have the same success rate. Laurie and I were each others biggest challenge. Occasionally we got caught if we forgot which board was the creaky one, and occassionally we met half way. One night I snuck in while she was in the bathroom and hid under her bed, and waited about fifteen minutes - knowing she was listening for me to crawl in - before I announced my victory with traditional "RAAAAAA"! One night I hid under my own bed and waited for her to come to try to sneak up on me. Of course she thought that by getting that close without me calling her out that she had imminent victory and was poised to attack me in my bed. It had not occured to her that she would receive a pre-emptive strike from under it.

The best maneuver was one night when she caught me before I could "RAAAAA" her, but I had inadvertently caught her illegally eating cookies in bed - so she shushed me, invited me to climb under the covers, and taught me how to eat without leaving incriminating crumbs. The secret she demonstrated was to inhale through the mouth while biting, to suck any crumbs inward before they could fall out. It certainly sounded logical, and I got to eat cookies in her bed without fear of getting caught (if I did spill any crumbs, she would have been the one to get in trouble because "hey, there are no crumbs in my bed!").

I guess it's no wonder why we were cat people, not dog people - all of our games involved hiding, stalking, creeping, pouncing, and then gloating over our victims just to prove superiority.