If there’s a Ninja Warrior marathon on G4, the boys and I are watching it. We love Ninja Warrior. Mostly, we like it for the competitors who go face first off an obstacle, but we’re cheering even when someone makes it to the end of the stage and hits the red button.

Inevitably, our Ninja Warrior marathon watching concludes with me yelling at the kids to stop jumping on their beds and go outside if they want to run an obstacle course, or it involved one of the boys leaping from the couch onto my back and yelling, “I’ll be the first one up Mount Midoriyama!”

Thankfully, we only catch Ninja Warrior marathons about once every couple of months. My back couldn’t take more than that.

Jean wasn’t feeling well Friday evening. “You and the boys can do whatever you want for dinner,” she said. “I’m having soup.”

If it’s Dad’s turn to cook, that means we’re going out to dinner, so I rounded up the kids and moved them to the car.

It was already late by the time we got in the car, but I’d decided that milkshakes and cheeseburgers at the Grill in Athens was on the menu.

“We’ll never find a parking space,” I assured the boys as we drove into downtown. But we turned onto East Washington Street and a car was pulling out of a parking space.

We walked the three blocks to the Grill.

Growing up and when I was in college, I spent quite a bit of time in downtown Athens. I remember when College Square – in front of where Barnett’s Newsstand used to be – was unfit for families, and it always surprises me now to go down there after dark and not see a single tattooed, pierced layabout loitering their life away (and I say this without the least bit of condescension as I was frequently found there among them, loitering with my friends).

We ordered burgers, milkshakes and chili cheese fries and the boys sang my praises.

“You’re so great, Dad,” they said. “Thanks for taking us out to eat and letting us get milkshakes and burgers and chili cheese fries. Thanks for telling us these wonderful stories about when you were younger and used to meet your friends down here and drink coffee. Thanks for being so cool.”

At least, in my mind that’s what they said. I didn’t pay attention to what they actually said, but it may have been something along the lines of: “Oh no, not another boring story from a middle-aged man who wishes his life was still interesting and fun.”

We rolled ourselves out of our booth and out the door, and my digestive system was telling me to quit trying to be interesting and fun. Even the kids were complaining that they were over-stuffed and would never need to eat again.

But kids are resilient, and within a block of the Grill they were fine.

Perhaps it was the guy walking around wearing the life-sized horse head mask or maybe it was the drunk guy teaching my sons new words they can’t repeat as he stumbled down the street talking to a friend in his “outside voice.” But whatever it was, Nathan and Robert and even my nearly 14-year-old son Harrison decided that the ordinary decorum I expect from them when we’re in public wasn’t necessary, and they took off running down the sidewalk in front of me.

They jumped up on benches and concrete planters and leapt off with great glee. At the courthouse, they ran up the steps, around the pillars and slid down the hand rails.

Robert came running up to me, out of breath and laughing.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“We’re free runners,” he told me, darting back up the steps of the courthouse.

That’s when I remembered the last time I’d been forced to play the part of Mt. Midoriyama. A couple of the competitors on Ninja Warrior were introduced and the announcer said their occupation was “free runner.”

If you’re unfamiliar with free running, it’s worthwhile to look at some Youtube videos as it really is a pretty neat thing. These guys leap off of buildings and other obstacles, flip off of walls and jump from building to building.

Of course, as I watched my sons jump over benches and leap handrails and jump off of low walls, I also recalled that the other place I’d seen “free runners” was on TruTV’s “It Only Hurts When I Laugh” – a sort of America’s Funniest Home Videos where people break a limb or bust their head open.

Just in time to stop Nathan from attempting a dive and rolling landing from a brick wall, I remembered the broken bones  and bloody heads on TruTV and said, “All right, boys, that’s enough free running. Get in the car.”

It’s been years since I frequented downtown Athens on a Friday night, but what I learned this past Friday is that it can be just as much fun loitering down there now as it used to be. The difference, of course, is that the riffraff is less tattooed, a bit shorter, and instead of sitting around on concrete planters they’re free running around them.

Rob Peecher is editor of The Oconee Leader, and though he’s fairly certain he may have passed the prime age for free running he does think it looks interesting and fun.

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