The Slice: War games absurd, but fun

Nobody who fought in the Civil War is around today, of course.

But there are still many of us who as children pretended that we did.

Memories of playing combat came flashing back recently with the sesquicentennial of the start of that conflict.

Perhaps it wasn’t the most enlightened form of after-school recreation. But unlike those playing certain violent video games today, participants at least got some fresh air and exercise.

The thing is, not all of the kids in my leafy neighborhood qualified as serious military historians. So as a result, the war games undertaken on and around Adams Street often featured anachronistic absurdities.

For example …

Revolutionary War: It’s doubtful that any redcoats actually channeled the Fab Four and sang “Yeah, yeah, yeah” as they opened fire on the young colonists. And there probably were not a lot of Boston Red Sox caps in evidence.

War of 1812: Our infrequent borrowing of this theme may well have been historically accurate, as actual 19th century combatants could also have asked, “What exactly is this about?”

Civil War: Surrogate Rebs in sneakers insisted that the 1963 version of Gettysburg would have a different ending. And some dumb kid always employed all manner of machine guns ahead of schedule.

Cowboys and Indians: It seems unlikely that indigenous warriors would have engaged in scalping to the extent witnessed on Adams Street. And the depantsings probably wouldn’t stand up to scholarly scrutiny either.

World War I: I don’t think the French and Germans heard somebody’s mom yelling out the back door about knocking off that trench-digging.

World War II: The actual combatants in the 1940s probably didn’t call timeout because some unlucky soldier took a dirt-clod grenade in the eye.

Cold War: On Adams Street, even 6-year-olds knew the launch codes and practically every kid espoused a remarkably hawkish first-strike policy.

Today’s Slice question: If you almost always shop at, say, a Rosauers or an Albertsons, does going into a Safeway, Super One, Yoke’s or whatever feel like being in a different city?