Barb chased Alice around, back, and forth through the yard. Donna zig-zagged across the lawn to get out of the way, while I did the same thing in the opposite direction. Our game of tag had one rule: we had to stay in the yard. That wasn’t a problem. The yard was large. My three neighborhood cousins and I had plenty of room to move around. Our shrill screams cut through the still yard. Bats living in the orchard woke up and swooped through the darkening sky above to devour mosquitoes. A firefly slowly blinked its way across the lawn. I shuffled my feet through the dewy grass, enjoying how cool it felt. The day had been uncomfortably hot.

Alice unexpectedly changed direction and picked up speed. Donna happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since this sister would be an easier tag victim, Barb reached out to touch her. Donna evaded her by dropping to the cool, damp grass and rolling out of reach. Stopping in her tracks, Barb called out, “Tag! You’re it!”

Jumping to her feet, Donna hotly replied, “I am not! You missed touching me.”

Barb shouted, “I did too, touch you! I felt your hair with my fingers just as you moved away.”

Alice jumped into the argument with, “Touching hair doesn’t count.”

Bemused, I listened to my cousins argue. There were seven children in my family, but my siblings were all five and a half to fifteen years older than me, causing me at times to feel like an only child. We never had shouting-match fights. My cousins came from a family of seven children as well, and these three were all one year apart.

 Donna suddenly shouted, “King’s X! King’s X! Let’s do over.”

Barb nodded and admitted, “Starting over is a good idea.” Then she ordered, “Let’s draw straws to see who will be ‘It’.”

I have liked the concept of “King’s X” from the moment I first heard it shouted on the playground and given the explanation of what it meant. Shouted during a game dispute, it ended whatever argument we kids had. It meant that whatever came before no longer stood. The slate was wiped clean, and we could start anew.

As an adult, I have often wished I could yell, “King’s X” to be able to start over when things go wrong in my life. Unfortunately, life isn’t a game. Poor choices can’t be undone. I thought of this in September while vacationing in Rome.

My daughter Tammie and I took the subway back to our apartment’s neighborhood after touring Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House). The subterranean halls and stairways were crowded. Humid air, the scent of sweaty people and exhaust filled the corridors.

As we began to descend a long, steep flight of stairs, I saw a group of about six young adults with a baby in a stroller. Two of the men balanced the stroller between them as they walked down the staircase. The baby had a lot of black hair. Despite being very small, the infant wasn’t strapped into the shallow stroller bed.

Halfway down, just as they reached the landing between the next long string of steps, the baby fell out of the carriage onto the cement staircase landing. The mother was several steps away when she saw the child tipped out onto the ground. Her high-pitched, piercing cry echoed against the tiled walls. Pushing people aside, she ran to scoop the baby into her arms.

The small group crowded to one side of the landing to attend to the baby. For a moment the surge of strangers around them slowed. When the tiny, red-faced infant cried, the crowd quickly moved on. The baby had survived. I worried that it was injured. I’m sure the family wished the incident could be done over differently.

New Years Day and birthdays are good times for us to sit down to evaluate what worked for us and what didn’t during the previous twelve months. King’s X isn’t a new idea. New Year resolutions have been around for a long time. This year, when I raise a glass of wine to my loved ones, I should announce, “King’s X, everybody! This coming year I’m going to do better than last year. In 2024 I will not spend so much time at the computer, eat sensibly and do less snacking. I’ll exercise more and go to bed earlier than midnight.”

I don’t know why people always sing the old maudlin song, “Auld Lang Syne” as the new year begins. We should all shout, “King’s X!! Do over!” The year 2023 is ending this week. What are the things in your life that you wish you could change?