A World at War...

When I was a child growing up in the city of Nashua, I remember going to war...

To explain this event, you must first learn of the make up of my neighborhood and the surrounding territories. We'll start with the Center, a five way intersection in a residential area, where the main roads to each of the territories met. It was usually free of cars, but we rarely spent much time there... but it was the hub of our childhood world.

Little Florida, the outermost, a cul-de-sac of tenish streets, all named after Florida cities, with only one long winding road in. They were literally the Sweeden of our place, about a half a mile from the Center. They stuck with themselves, since they had a river behind them where someone had built a dirt bike track, so they were sort of the unexplored country for most of the different lands.

Aside from them was the Freemont st kids, who were a formidable lot because of the fact that they owned the only playground in the whole area. You had to live in a small condo to be able to use it, so being their ally gave you permission.

Just around the corner from Freemont, was a long dead end road named Paxton Terrace, which was sort of a super suburban road, nearly identical duplexes as far as you went. To this day I do not believe I went to the end of there... but there was a reason for that.

If you followed Freemont away from the main road, and did not take the road to the Center, you took around about way through a few back secluded houses, that lead to a mill/corperate building, this was sort of no mans' land, a free port if you would. there were a few, unallied people there, most of whom stayed away from us, and we them. But that road led down to the lower income places, some were right dangerous to the un-allied.

Sadly, the street that was the child hub of that area's name escapes me to this day, we simply called it "Where Aaron Lived," another kid lived there two, but he was un-allied.

Whichever road you took from there led you up a hill, the highest point in the area known as Beacon St, home to a large two apartment buildings, one a quadplex and the other a complex, but the street was just rise and a fall of the hill, at it's hight was a Court. Beacon Ct.

It was the highground, the safest and most defensible place in the whole of the neighborhood. With a terrain of cliffs and rock walls scalable only to those who knew them well, it was a fortress, with an unlimited hidden entrances and exits. A place where you could escape to, and no one dared follow.

This was my domain.

It is not pride that I remember it as that, but fact. I inherited it from Joseph, who had moved away a year after I moved there. I had taken the neighbors yard (they had no kids therefore it was unclaimed) from the kids across the street. I had defended it against the invading Frost family, through many a black eye and split lip. This was my castle on the hilltop.

It was in my third year of rule, that the great war started...

My friend, Eliot, a denizen of Freemont, informed me of a fight between a citizen of Freemont, and some rabble from Paxton. It started out like any fight, but nether would conceed defeat, so they left to gather allies. We at Beacon Ct, much like the Celts of old, took a break from fighting our long standing enemies, the kids from Beacon St. to help our combined ally.

Freemont was allied with us on the Beacon, not just for their covet playground or our hedge mazes, but also in a shared love of riding bikes across the big wooden bridge between Freemont and Little Florida.

Through us at Beacon, they were allied with "The place where Aaron lived", but not with the kids just past him, they were allied to none.

We grabbed a few allies from no mans' land, and a few from the road between Freemont and Beacon, where the old people lived. Also, we grabbed the kids who lived on the hidden U, which was "not a thru street" but held a strange lot of able solders ready to fight for Freemont. They were not allied with Beacon, but in this fight, we all were.

Paxton, however, had been busy. They held the largest free standing army, their road was bigger and prone to the same age bracket of children, they also held an Alliance with Little Florida, who despite their size, only a small portion of their army had ever surfaced. To this day, many theorize that should Little Florida ever risen up in force, none of us could have held them back. They all literally own ten speed mountain bikes.

Our battle field was the Ravine, the large grassy drain between Freemont and the house that was between Freemont and the Playground. I couldn't count the numbers of those that had shown up.

The rules of engagement were made clear, no projectiles of any kind unless magical. No melee weapons, unless otherwise allowed. No hitting Nichole, the latin vixen that lived in that separating house, we all owed allegiance to her. No one would cease fighting until one side was clearly the winner.

Also, we decided the theme should be Star Wars, since the remastered edition had just hit theaters.

I, to the eternal honor of my clan, was elected to be Boba Fett. With appropriate honor, I trounced IG38, and offered some help against Darth Vader. I believe Eliot may have been Chewbacca, we just chose characters, not sides. Leave the old war where it was, ours was about heroes.

It last two, grueling days.

At the end, someone won, I don't remember, the ice cream man had figured out there was a war going on and stopped by. I would have called my brethern back to combat, to finish what was started, but Goddamn I love Bottlerockets.

So, the war was ended, likely the two offenders were dead behind us, crying because they fell on something pointed. But we had won through the day, and Paxton retreated vowing revenge, and Little Florida retreated vowing... to one day figure out who any of us were.

To be sure, there were other wars, abductions, and one impressive siege where I put aside my differences with the Hongs; Paxton turncoats, and held off a fort we had build on a dirt hill from a group of Paxtons with a tree fashioned into a dirtbomb catapult.

But no war ever stands out as clearly as that one... there I nights I wake up in cold sweats... for completely different reasons, but there's definently some times I remember that war of the Ravine.

In that war, I was a general, I fought beside my allies with honor, I lead my people bravely and I was also Boba friggin' Fett, which was totally awesome.