 Brian Dennehy, CMO of Nordstrom and 23-year tag player |
For 23 years, they've been trying to escape each other in an elaborate game of Tag they began in high school.
Yes, that Tag -- the schoolyard game where one "It" person chases everyone else until he or she finally catches a straggler.
For the grown men from Spokane, Washington, there's no geographic line the players can't cross, and no prank the "It" person can't pull. The men can be tagged in their places of work (during Dennehy's first week on the job he asked how good the building's security was), in their homes, and even in bed.
To avoid sideways glances, the game is only played during the month of February. The last of the nine tagged during the month remains "It" for the remainder of the year.
"You're like a deer or elk in hunting season," one of the players, a teacher named Joe Tombari, tells The Wall Street Journal.
Here's how tricky the game can get. From WSJ:
One February day in the mid-1990s, Mr. Tombari and his wife, then living in California, got a knock on the door from a friend. "Hey, Joe, you've got to check this out. You wouldn't believe what I just bought," he said, as he led the two out to his car.
What they didn't know was Sean Raftis, who was "It," had flown in from Seattle and was folded in the trunk of the Honda Accord. When the trunk was opened he leapt out and tagged Mr. Tombari, whose wife was so startled she fell backward off the curb and tore a ligament in her knee.
"I still feel bad about it," says Father Raftis, who is now a priest in Montana. "But I got Joe."