Video games have nearly always been a part of my life. When I look back, video games were present at many seminal moments in my life. This is one of them.
Once, my hometown had an arcade. At the time, it was quite brand new, and all the cabinets were shiny. You couldn’t even smoke inside! It was a kid’s paradise.
I would blow my entire allowance there, and when that wasn’t enough, I would steal quarters from Mom’s collection of change kept near her nightstand. It seemed to me that I was taking too much and she would notice, so I didn’t one day.
At the arcade, however, I quickly spent my quarters on Knights of the Round (a personal favorite), so I wandered around the mall until I found a Turbo-Grafx 16 demo unit at the Radio Shack. Bonk’s Adventure was in the machine, so I played that.
For whatever reason, no one kicked me off the machine -- they usually did after 10 minutes or so, and I must have been there a couple hours. An employee actually had to ask me to leave when he noticed I was still in the store when he was locking up. I started to walk home.
It was a 15 minute walk from the mall to my house, but about halfway home, my mother pulled up next to me flipping out. Apparently everyone under the sun was looking for me, and just what was I thinking being out so late. Boy, was she steaming!
Looking back on it, I can only remember just how angry she was. I was even grounded for a while. In retrospect, even though she didn’t mention it, I think she was at least happy that I was safe and sound.
Part 1: My Father and the Warp Pipes
Part 2: Doomed
