Brad Kozak reminisces about the lessons he learned from childhood games:
My parents were, shall we say, “old school.” All that “don’t spank your kids” philosophy held no water in the Kozak household. And I can report, firsthand, that Jean Shepherd was wrong — Lifebuoy soap may taste awful, but a mouthful of Lava bar soap is worse. Far worse. In my youth, I briefly became something of an unwilling connoisseur of bar soaps. I can tell you that, while Lava has a distinctive texture on the tongue, it’s piquant aftertaste after-burn will win no awards at the next Concours Mondial de Bruxelles.
My parents believed that what was good enough for them as kids, wouldn’t kill me. That attitude was a wondrous gift, for it allowed me to play with other kids in the neighborhood, get knocked down, knocked around, and to learn to stand up for myself. But I learned most of my lessons with a toy gun in my hand. But what could a kid learn like that, other than hostility, aggression, and inappropriate group behaviors? Allow me to enlighten you, grasshoppa, with a dozen or so things I learned behind a toy six-shooter:
[. . .]
- It’s a Poor Workman Who Blames His Tools. There was an arms race that took place in my neighborhood when I was a kid. You probably never heard about it, because we received no national news coverage, no State Department visits, and no UN resolutions, condemning hostilities. The arms race I speak of commenced with the release of the very first SuperSoakers, and was exacerbated by the arms merchant that perpetually released bigger and better weapons with more capacity and increased ranges. Come to think of it, we also learned lessons about “the point of diminishing returns” (that backpack reservoir was a piece of crap, I tell you!), and build quality (or the lack thereof). They were expensive lessons, but eventually, natural selection took over and we all settled on similarly tricked-out weapons, leaving us to win, lose, or draw over our own skills. Oh, and “cold” part of the war? Nothing is quite as cold on a hot July day as getting a face full of ice water and a soaked t-shirt. Nothing.
- Play Smart. Most of what I know as negotiating skills, I learned on the playground. Those rules I mentioned earlier? They made perfect sense, because we made them up, as needed, in order to effect a “level playing field” for the majority, and to try and find a way to turn the game to our own advantage. In this way, we learned the ways of Wall Street, Congress, and politics in general.
- Play Honorably. When you’re a kid, cheating one another is a near-unpardonable sin. Cheaters never win isn’t exactly true. They can win the game, but never the war. “Bang, bang, you’re dead, I win” was a sure-fire way of never getting asked back.
