No Bears

I always liked going to my grandmother's houses. At my mom's mom's house we would play outside, inside, through the chicken coup, and in the trees. When we had a large gathering of the cousins at the house my older cousins would be forced to play with us. Their mothers, my aunts, would require the teenagers to be nice and get all of the younger cousins involved. My mother is third youngest so she had a lot of brothers and sisters that were already married. She has some nephews and nieces that are almost the same age as she. These cousins were the cool cousins. The ones that I wanted to be like. They could climb all of the trees in the yard and they could outrun all of the younger cousins. Some of them could drive. I was jealous of their secret meetings as they would talk with cousins that were close in age while I was relegated to talking with cousins my own age. Now don't misunderstand, I loved and liked all of my cousins. I never had a dull moment playing with the cousins that were the same age as me or even with my brothers and sisters who were also close in age with me but I can't say I didn't want to be a part of the older cousin group. Josephine, my mom's oldest sister had eleven kids by the time she was done with most of these several years older than me. Elwin, my mom's older brother had six or seven kids again with most being older than me. Ivin, had four kids, all older than me although the youngest was only two years my senior. Margaret and Lynn both just older than my mom had kids my age and Gayle who was just younger than mom had kids who were also my age. When we all got together grandma's house there was never a quiet place and we all liked it that way. The yard would be so overrun with people that if we got bored climbing trees or chasing each other across the lawn we could easily go inside and play a board game or if the chess board was available we could play that. If we were playing chess, Elwin or Grandma would usually come over and help us play. Sometimes they would play chess against us. This is how I learned to lose. Grandma, Elwin and my other aunts and uncles would play chess with us and beat us every time. They would help us understand how each piece moved but even in teaching the rules they never let us win. The most frustrating thing to hear from Elwin was, "Are you sure you want to move there?" We would over think it every time. I don't think in all the chess games I played with Grandma or Elwin or any other aunt or uncle I ever won a single game. For that I would have to play with the cousins my own age or those younger than me and sometimes I would lose those too because grandma or Elwin would help them, just to make it fair, as they put it. In grandma's house it did not matter who was playing the game from toddler to senior from aunt and uncle to cousin everyone played to win. Grandma was notorious for playing games like "Sorry" or "Trouble" or "Uno" with the littlest of her grandchildren and beat them all and if any of us pouted or cried because we lost she would explain that games are meant to be played to win and not meant to be fair or for someone to let someone win just to be nice. Now the older teenage cousins knew that eventually they would get told that they needed to play with the younger cousins. Josephine would recommend a game called "No bears are out tonight." This game is quite simple. One of the older cousins was the "bear" and everyone else was the kids. The "bear would hide somewhere in the trees around one side of the house and everyone else would line up along grandma's garden. We counted to ten and then we started to walk towards the side of the house where the bear was hiding. We would chant, "No bears are out tonight. Daddy shot them all last night." We would chant this over and over and over again while walking towards the "bears" hiding place. The "bear would eventually jump out of its hiding place and growl and chase us back towards the garden and safety. If the bear touched us we were out. Once those that did not get touched got back to safety the "bear" would hide again and the process would be repeated until everyone had been tagged by the "bear". The last one tagged became the "bear" in the next game and all would line up at the garden to start the game again. We usually played this game at dusk and as it got darker and darker it became harder and harder to see where the "bear" had hidden. This also made it scarier and scarier as we walked up from the garden, through the grass, up the hill created by the ditch and then to the side of the house with all of the creepy shadows and outlines of the trees at the side of the house. I would squeal in delight with the rest of the younger cousins as we played well into the night. As I got older and became one of the older cousins I got to be the "bear" and terrorize my younger cousins and siblings. Maybe tomorrow a "bear" will chase me again.