Tag Archives: cops and robbers

Cops and Robbers

Cops and robbers: (n) a children’s game in which a group of players imitate the behavior of police and of thieves, as in pursuing and capturing.

I quickly ran through my mind a list of friends from my youth, with whom I played cops and robbers on a regular basis.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

There were many derivations to the game. But as I think back on it, all the guys who ended up being straight arrows chose to be cops. And all the dudes who ended up with a twist in their fate were robbers.

There was never any argument. Definitely, everyone had already decided whether they wanted to be a cop or a robber.

At the time, I didn’t consider that we were possibly making permanent life choices. But as it turns out, “cop buddies” tried very hard to be the equivalent peace-keeping individuals when they reached adulthood, while the “robber boys” took chances, failed, crunched cars and had an occasional scrap, which led to a scrape with the law.

Which group ended up happier?

As it turned out, the kids who chose “cops” played it safer, but life, being an aggressive and angry force from time to time, still tracked them down and plagued them with divorces, bankruptcies and odd diseases.

The “robbers,” who were prepared to be rebellious, actually, in many cases, took these attacks more in stride, and viewed them as challenges rather than curses.

It’s difficult to say.

I suppose you might wonder whether I chose to be a cop or a robber. Whenever the game was played, to satisfy both parties, I volunteered to go on the donut run.


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Abbasid

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbbasid: (1) adj. of or relating to a dynasty of caliphs who ruled in Baghdad from 750 to 1258.  (2)  n.: a member of this dynasty.

I remember a time when the mention of guns would conjure in my youthful immaturity the concept of cops and robbers. Also, I guess, was a flash or two of soldiers.

It was simpler. As a young kid, I would finish my breakfast hurriedly and head outside on a summer’s day to play all around the neighborhood with my friends, to return for a lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of yucky tomato soup, to then run out the door again and play and play with wild abandon.

I didn’t have a monitor on me to make sure I wouldn’t be abducted, nor did my mother worry about whether the neighbors were perverts.

Now, you see, some of them WERE. Perverts aren’t new. We didn’t come up with them in the past twenty years. It’s just that perverts were aware that they were odd–and tended to hide their predilections away from the neighborhood.

The reason I bring this up is because when I read the word “Baghdad” in the definition, I thought about how much that word has changed in my mind over the years. When I was a kid, Baghdad was a place in stories where people rode camels and when they got tired of moving so slowly, they leapt upon magic carpets.

It was cool. It was magical.

I didn’t know they were Muslims … because I didn’t know what a Muslim was. I didn’t know they hated America … because why would you hate us when you’ve got TENTS that look small on the outside but when you walk inside, they’re palaces? I didn’t know their women were subjected and mistreated. In the stories, they were all princesses.

Move ahead a little bit and Baghdad turns into kind of a stronghold for some guy named Saddam, who lives next door to another strong-arm dude named the Shah of Iran–but we’re told it’s cool because they’re our allies. This, of course, pleased me. Because they were our friends, we had a lifetime supply of magic carpets available to us.

Then we find out the Shah is a jerk and Saddam is kind of crazy–followed by some of their people abandoning their carpets and jumping into our jets and flying into our big buildings–and those folks from Baghdad suddenly become our enemies. Since then, my public perception of this place has been going constantly downhill.

It’s too bad.

Maybe Baghdad people never WERE Ali Baba, but I’m sure they’re not all Ali Bad-Bad either. I’ll never know, will I? I’ll never get the chance to find out about their caliphs and their Abbasids, because basically they’re our enemies–or is it now our friends? It’s hard to keep up.

There are not a whole lot of things I would like to return to. I certainly think that knowledge has progressed us, holding back the tide of disease and stupidity, but it would be nice to recapture some of the trust and gentleness we felt towards our fellow-man–even those in Baghdad.