Glowball....

Glowball. Mention glowball to any of my friends from my childhood and you will see a huge grin appear on their face. Glowball was an invented game that took place only on certain nights. My parents had to be gone obviously, but it had to be dark, and had to be at my parents house. Why? First because my parents house had a floor plan that allowed you to run from one room to another without having to open any doors or stopping to turn sharp corners. And it was filled with all kinds of things to hide behind. Secondly, our house had very few outside lights to shine into the windows, therefore making it very dark if you turned out all the lights inside the house. It was required that you play Glowball in as dark an environment as possible and well, my parents house fit the bill perfectly.

What was Glowball? Think hide and seek and tag mixed together but you tagged a person who was hiding by hitting them (as hard as you could) with a small, hard plastic ball that could only be found in the box of cereal called QUISP. (Anyone remember QUISP?!?!) It was a molded glow in the dark ball that was actually a replica of the moon, and if you held it under a light long enough it would glow for like 10 minutes. Longer than any other glow in the dark object we had ever seen. And since it was a solid ball, it would not break apart if it hit anything hard. (Bodies, including heads, are not hard, by the way)

What you did was you got a bunch of bored grade and high school boys together and picked someone to be the "robot" who held possession of the glowball. No one else could touch it, or you would be "it". The rest of the boys would turn off all the lights and go hide around the house. Any place in the house, excluding the basement and attic, was considered a legal place to hide. The "robot" would then place himself in the bathroom and "charge and blind" himself by placing the glowball on a light bulb thereby "charging" it, and at the same time, staring at the light buld in order to "blind" the "robot" once he left the bathroom in search of hiding victims.

The robot would go out in search of victims, usually stumbling around for about a minute as his eyes would re-adjust, all the while making silly robot or creepy noises to put the hiders on edge. Often, it was so dark that the robot would walk within inches of the person hiding, so the tension level was quite high and sometimes would result in normally "tough" boys squealing and laughing like little girls! The robot would go about the house looking for his victims by searching in all places with eyes and hands and feet.

Hiding spots were quite creative. I know of boys hiding on top of the stove, refrigerator, under couches (not just cushions, but the whole damned couch)and standing on the top of chair backs while balancing against a wall. No place was unrestricted unless it would not hold your weight.

Once the victim was found, one of two things happened.
CIRCUMSTANCE ONE: If a victim was found and said victim was out of arms reach, the glowball was thrown at the victim in an attempt to hit the victim with it and thereby making it the next robot. Often though, the throw would go wide and the would be victim would scream in terror, jump up (or down)from the hiding spot and flee around the house, slamming into, falling over, and climbing up things around the house, all while the robot tried to retrieve the glowball and follow in pursuit. The pursuit usually flushed out a few other hiding victims and so the robot would numerous possible targets, all running this way and that in hopes of avoiding the smack of a plastic glowball in the back, the legs, the head or nut sack.
CIRCUMSTANCE TWO: If a victim was found and said victim was within arms reach, the robot would, in an attempt increase his odds of hitting the victim with the glowball, deliver a mighty blow to the hiding victim. This was usually delivered to the gut or legs in an attempt to stun and immobilize them so that the glowball could be delivered with full force to the stunned victim, thereby making him the next Glowball Robot!

(Imagine the feeling of a hard plastic ball connecting with your body from a distance of about five feet, after it leaves the hand of an adrenaline crazed teenage boy, who finds a helpless victim to throw it at. Add to it that there is no recourse for the victim. He signed up for this game. Take the hit like a man, or leave the house. If you can imagine this, then you can understand the level of pain involved.)

For me, the best memory was one of my times as the robot. I came out of the bathroom, blind as a bat, looking for someone to throw this ball at. I circled the house at least once, and came back to the main living room. Still slightly blind, I did manage to perceive what I though was someones head sticking out from behind a chair back. Rather than check further, I chucked the ball at the "head" and was rewarded with a loud "THWOK!" and the glowball bounceing directly back at me as if it had hit a brick wall. I also heard a body hitting the floor and a moan of pain come from my buddy Mike, and a string of curses from him, followed by hoots and howls of laughter from everyone else hidden in the room. I admit I am not a great thrower of objects, but in the low light conditions and diminished eyesight, I must have let instinct and luck have free reign and I tagged him square in the forehead and nearly knocked him out. Someone turned the lights came on and we made sure he wasn't dead, and then proceeded to laugh ourselves silly for the next 15 minutes over his pain and my grand effort!

Thinking back on these games, I am amazed that nothing got broken in my parents house. Or nothing got broken to the point where it could not be fixed and made to look whole again. We always cleaned up after these games and it seemed as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the house. We must have done well, because my parents never said anything about it. Ever. We got lucky.

I found the glowball many years ago while attending college. Looking at it, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia that this little piece of plastic produced. I don't know what ever happened to it since then, but I am glad I have lost it. If not, I would be sorely tempted to have shown it to my kids and explained what glowball was. And then, glowball would be played in my house. And that would not be good. This is one game I think that is best left in the past and resurrected in story form only.