It was surely summer most of the time, but I vividly remember cool nights. We would creep like spies through the neighborhood backyards, noisy as a birthday party. Then something would change the atmosphere: an unexpected car, a dog barking, maybe a disconnected voice.

Our group would break and run every time in a combination of terror and thrills, hearts beating like a blacksmith’s anvil and giggling nonstop. We never got caught because we were never really doing anything wrong. We were just fifteen–year–olds out running through the dark night living out Bob Seger songs not yet written.

It would begin midweek. Someone would talk his mom into letting a group of us come over for Friday or Saturday night. Maybe after the Elks’ Club dance. We would sleep in tents in the backyard or scatter around the garage. No one was expecting a formal to do. Hot dogs or sandwiches that night and donuts the next morning before we stumbled home.

A few Beatles records and some brash talk, followed by a gruff old man ordering us to go to bed because it was late. Where did all the gruff old men go? TV made them all obsolete. Today’s dads have to be meek and understanding.

We thought we were being smart waiting for the old people to drift into a deep, non–reversible sleep. In truth, they probably knew we were harmless and couldn’t get into too much trouble. No intrepid local news reporters or CNN stars were available to warn parents about all the really bad things happening to teenagers.

When we did sneak away, all cars were cop cars and all other noises were sinister. We hid in the backyards and woods and snuck around like escaped convicts. A bunch of James Dean and Dennis Hopper wannabes living on the edge of life itself.

Three of us were surprised late one night by an overzealous guard for a campus swimming pool. We were skinny dipping because we didn’t want to walk home in wet clothes. Old Man Saunders raced after Mike, while Chris and I snuck off toward home.

Mike jumped out of the bushes a few blocks later, nearly causing both of us to ruin our underwear. He was wearing an oversized pair of boxers he borrowed from someone’s clothes line.

Another time we were running panic stricken between some backyards in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Two different guys failed to see the empty clothesline. Six back porch lights came on before we stopped laughing at them.

I know things are somewhat different four and a half decades later. There are daily stories of teenagers getting arrested and worse for doing stuff we thought was as lame as tapioca pudding. Does fun still exist? Silly, stupid, giggling fun?

Parenting has become competitive, and no one remembers what it was like to be 15. Everyone overreacts to anything the least bit silly or out of bounds. I know kids, boys, haven’t changed, deep down inside. But I still wonder, with all the hysteria surrounding growing up, if there are boys still roaming the night, harming no one but imagining they are.

I sure hope so. It makes great memories.