[PenultimateManStanding]

Just reminiscing here. I saw this old lady next door out in her yard shining her flashlight all over the place and wondered what she was looking for. She's been doing that for the four years that I've lived here. But tonight it brought back memories. When I was just a little kid my parents and their friends took all their horses and us kids up to the mountains every summer for vacation. The grown-ups would all sip bourbon around the campfire and get plastered while we kids played a delightful game called "flashlight tag." We'd all run around through the darkness and the pines and seek each other out with flashlight beams. Anybody illuminated in the beam was "caught." Those forests where we use to camp are all burned down now. They burned in October, 2003.

[Pops]

All kids love flashlights.

Especially shinning them in each others faces.

When one finally gets it across to those little brains that it only takes a second of bright light to make them blind for a half hour in the dark they start to use those lights as tools.

Or at least learn to keep one eye closed.

[fireplaceguy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'W')hen one finally gets it across to those little brains that it only takes a second of bright light to make them blind for a half hour in the dark they start to use those lights as tools.

[WildRose]

I remember playing a similar game with the Brownies and Girl Guides at one of our winter camps. We went outside on a cold evening, around 10 o'clock. It was probably about -20 C, but calm, with beautiful moonlight. The snow was a few feet deep, and I don't think the girls even needed flashlights, really. It was fabulous, running in and out of the trees, "catching" each other with the beam of our flashlights, breathing cool air and laughing every time we stumbled in the deep snowy drifts. It was the highlight of our weekend.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fireplaceguy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'W')hen one finally gets it across to those little brains that it only takes a second of bright light to make them blind for a half hour in the dark they start to use those lights as tools.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', 'I') remember playing a similar game with the Brownies and Girl Guides at one of our winter camps. We went outside on a cold evening, around 10 o'clock. It was probably about -20 C, but calm, with beautiful moonlight. The snow was a few feet deep, and I don't think the girls even needed flashlights, really. It was fabulous, running in and out of the trees, "catching" each other with the beam of our flashlights, breathing cool air and laughing every time we stumbled in the deep snowy drifts. It was the highlight of our weekend.

[Plantagenet]

One of my fondest memories is sitting in a sidewalk cafe one night along the square in Rome outside the Pantheon having a beer, and shining a laser pointer on the ancient building. There were some street vendors selling cheap little lasers, and I bought one for the heck of it. Occasionally some tourist or somebody else would shine a laser on the Pantheon. Seemed like sacrilige to do it, but eventually I shined my laser on the Pantheon too. The laser shown as a little red dot on the Pantheon, and I ran it around the 2000-year-old latin writing and the incredible dome the Romans built. It was like embracing and making love to the wonderful old building. I'll stick my laser in THERE! Ahhhhhhhhh that was good.

Uh Uh UH. Do it, laser.