Childhood, With No Risk Assessment
Manfred
I learned very early in life to minimize input and maximize output. Other children may have mistaken this for laziness, but I would call it strategy, and The Mayor, asking the questions, seemed to understand that childhood games were never just games. They were early laboratories for power, efficiency, and plausible deniability.
Football was the first great arena. I became the goalkeeper, not because I had heroic reflexes or a burning desire to protect the honor of the team, but because I knew the ball would eventually come to me. Everyone else could run themselves into the ground. I simply waited. When the ball arrived, I picked it up from the goal and returned it to the center of the field. This was not sport. This was logistics.
When The Mayor asked about goalposts, I had to explain that in Hessen, everything is bigger and better. Barn doors were ideal. They were wonderfully oversized and, even better, came with a big black hole behind them. There was no arguing about invisible posts when the goal was the size of a rural aircraft hangar. If the ball disappeared into the darkness, the matter was settled.
Of course, not all childhood games required a ball. Some required timing, fireworks, and a very specific moral framework. New Year’s Eve offered opportunities. Fireworks existed. Letter boxes existed. Unkind people existed. They deserved it. No further comment. Martin may call that a permanent state of war, but I probably recognized it as seasonal justice.
I also had my private empires. I still have my Matchbox collection, which says something about continuity, taste, and possibly unresolved sovereignty issues. With Lego, I played by myself, because being a dictator has its advantages. There were no coalition negotiations, no shared building strategy, no other child placing the wrong brick in the wrong place and calling it creativity. My world had order. My world had a ruler. My world probably ran on time.
Looking back, the games were never innocent in the way adults like to imagine. They were about territory, control, loopholes, and energy conservation. The Mayor asked about childhood, but I suspect he was really asking when our personalities became visible. In my case, very early. I stood in goal, governed Lego alone, maintained a Matchbox archive, and understood that if a barn door is available, one should not waste time with two school bags.
Martin
Where there was an unused square meter of space, I and the others converted it immediately into a Bundesliga-worthy stadium. I remember it like that: no planning permission, no budget committee, no architectural tender. Just a small patch of ground and suddenly we had football. School bags became goalposts, and with enough conviction, the whole thing felt official.
The Mayor asked about rules changing every five minutes, usually because one child was losing and had suddenly become a constitutional lawyer. That was familiar. Match fixing was illegal, naturally, but a flexible interpretation of the rules was considered good sportsmanship. There is a difference. At least, there was when we needed there to be a difference.
Manfred had his Hessen barn doors and his goalkeeper philosophy. He believed in minimizing input and maximizing output. I understand this now as a kind of rural German Zen. He stood in the goal because the ball came to him, while the rest of us ran around pretending there was glory in exhaustion. Perhaps he was ahead of his time. Perhaps he was simply conserving energy for later dictatorship with Lego.
The Mayor also asked whether I was a Topfschlagen, Verstecken, Fangen, or Völkerball child. Topfschlagen, yes, although somehow we managed without the Töpfe. That sounds impossible, but childhood had a way of removing essential equipment and carrying on regardless. Many of the other activities happened at school, and over time a lot has become clearer to me. At the time it was called play. Later one realizes it may also have been early social conditioning, mild warfare, and physical education with witnesses.
Rules mattered, of course. My friends and I are responsible for some of the inclusion of strict rules in the world billiard and snooker rules. I will not say the authorities thanked us, but civilization rarely thanks its pioneers. Someone has to stand up and say, “No, that shot does not count,” and then defend the point until recess ends or diplomatic relations collapse.
Friendships were tested most severely through sport. In this field, sport is a great equalizer, sometimes leading to a permanent state of war. That is the beauty of childhood competition: by lunchtime one could be teammates, by afternoon enemies, and by the next day pretend the entire crisis had been resolved, while quietly remembering exactly who cheated.
When The Mayor asked what game I would most like to play again for one afternoon, the answer had to be football. Same rules, same kids, same scraped knees. But now there would need to be extra oxygen tents and zimmerframes. The spirit is willing, but the adult body has become a bureaucrat. It demands forms, warnings, risk assessments, and possibly medical staff.
Still, I would play. Manfred could stand in goal again, waiting for the ball with his efficient little theory of life. The Mayor could ask the questions from a safe distance. And I would return to that one unused square meter of space, knowing exactly what it could become: a stadium, a battlefield, a courtroom, and a childhood, all at once.
