A while back, my 6-year old grandson was hanging out with me while I did whatever it was I had planned for the afternoon.
I am a very fortunate grandpa because my profession often allows me to be at home around the same time my grandson gets off the school bus. I am also fortunate because his mom, dad and grandma have unfortunate career positions that do not usually allow them to be home when he does.
This adds up to a grandpa and a grandson spending a lot of afternoons together. It is fun.
Most afternoons, I am doing one of two things: working on a never-ending list of home remodeling projects (I am 12 years into my 10 year plan) or sitting in my recliner, pecking away on my laptop (much like I am doing now).
This means he is doing one of two things: running the shop-vac and keeping our work area clean (he is well-equipped with safety glasses, the “cool kind” with tinted, wrap-around lenses and noise reduction ear muffs), or sitting on the couch next to my recliner, doing something on his tablet — also fun.
On this particular afternoon, however, our normal routine was turned upside down.
The power went out, meaning I could not run a power tool and he could not run the shop-vac.
Yes, I do have hand saws for cutting, a brace and bit for drilling, along with hammers and nails for fastening and attaching. And yes, I do have a broom and dust pan for cleaning up.
But come on, that stuff is just for show. I am a master level instructor at the Tim Allen Institute of Technology (“More Power!”).
No power and weak batteries deprived us of our usual afternoon forms of entertainment. This left us with only our wits to survive.
My only mistake — relying on the wits of a 6-year-old.
We began with a raucous round of “car crusher.” This was a game that required me to chase him around the house, waving my hands and arms in a scissor-like motion while making noises that are supposed to sound like a car crusher at the junkyard. It required him to run around the house — screaming.
It was kinda’ fun.
Another game of his own redesign was “football.” I put the word football in quotations because it did employ the use of a ball shaped like a prolate spheroid with pointy ends (look it up – it is a real thing), but that was where the similarity ended.
This game required me to chase him from one end of the front yard to the other, and required him to score endless touchdowns — while screaming.
It was tiring, but fun.
Eventually, I became too exhausted from crushing cars and chasing a 6-year-old all over the place (it seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes, possibly seconds).
Considering more sedentary activities, we returned to the inside and, again, I deferred to his decision making process by allowing him to pick out some board games. He chose Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and Checkers, games with rules I understood and did not require me to run nor him to scream.
His creative mind is not subject to the accepted norms and standards, though. Instead we played with entirely new sets of rules, ones that allowed me to come close to winning, but not quite.
Checkers ended up with a rule that eliminated the need to jump over opponents. Some checkers — not every one, and only at his discretion — had the power to “bulldoze”, eliminating pesky checkers that might be in the way. To his credit, some of my checkers also had the “bulldoze” power. The rules did not provide for a winner, just a lot of bulldozed checkers.
That was really fun.
The last game of the afternoon was called “sheriff.” The sheriff had to chase the bad guy around the house while the bad guy screamed.
Sound a little familiar?
The rules changed on this one, though. The sheriff had to catch the bad guy, lock him up (the couch next to my recliner was the “jail”), and tell him a story.
His rules — it does not get any more fun than that.
To be honest, the power had come back on sometime while we were outside playing “football”, but that did not change the rules. We kept on playing.
You have got to love power outages. They are a lot of fun.

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.