In 5th grade, I invented a game called eyeball tag with my friends Kevin Houlihan, Paul Buckley, Jim Fennelly, Fred Stanske and Ron Campbell, among others.
#EyeballTag
Paul Buckley’s father, Dave Buckley, bought Paul a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1968, right after the anniversary of the Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, and the release of The Planet of the Apes, both of which we were introduced to for the first time.
Paul and I mostly would make tapes of apes and eyeballs…the subject matter surrounded science fiction adventure stories like Jonny Quest, “boney apes” (Paul) or “husky apes” (John, this author and game inventor).
So we made tapes of eyeballs, grub worms and creepy stuff and I decided to take it to the field on the Brittan Acres Elementary School playground. We’d play on the field but it seemed like wasted space out of softball, football or basketball season, so I invented this game, Eyeball Tag.
The Field:
On a square grass field, the grass is the “free zone” where you can get tagged on the back of the head, [at first, I devised eyeball tag to tag the one that’s not “it” in the eye. Before anyone was injured after a few run throughs, I changed the rules to tag the back of the head. [digression, I later hit a classmate and friend, Mike Hildreth in the back of the head during class. This went on for some time until I hit him too hard once and had to agree to pay him damages next time I hit him. I did indeed hit him and he reminded me forthwith to pay him. I did and never laid a hand on him again. Never considered myself a bully before until now.]
Anyway, the field. So you have this field and two status’: either you are it and in the field trying to “tag” the non-its running across the #freezone or you are free to do what you like in the “safety zones”, which were actually part of the playground. Where the grass met the asphalt, the asphalt would be the safe zone and the grass the active zone (formally described as a “free zone”). The non-its can come and go whenever they want, as they are on the asphalt playground anyway, but the its must stick it out on the grass field until they tag someone on the back of the head to be released of duty. Once you leave the safety of the two “safe zones” at either side of the field, one runs of their own free will whenever one wants, if at all, to the other side of the field where there is another safe zone. The its will be trying to tag you as you run from one end of the field to the other, where there is another safe zone. It can get pretty tiring for the its and they will want to tag you but for the reason they want to REST.
There is no turning back to a “base” as a runner might often do in baseball, but that doesn’t mean you are going to run in a straight line to avoid being tagged. Eyeball tag is a cross between football and tag. If the its got lazy in their duties, I would run at them and taunt them. They got mad and were not lazy.
Copyright and Trademark Intention
John Rubens
1968
Copyright October 29, 2014
JOHN RUBENS is no Mother Teresa. 