In 1979, being the overly curious kid that I was, I snuck into the storage closet. I was bored and needed to find something to play with. What I found was my father’s splurge purchase of the fantastic home console, Pong (aka Sèleco Ping-O-Tronic). I had no idea what it was at first. But it looked futuristic. After pondering, I first thought it was a weird flat radio. But the orange and white topped handle looking things baffled me. After a couple more minutes of inspection I eventually figured out that it connected to a tv. My next thought was maybe this was some super powered antenna. Or some kind of screen reception static eraser. I had to find out. And why was it in storage? So, I went into our garage and got our unused smaller Black & White tv. I then snuck everything into my room while my mother cooked in the kitchen. I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed back then. It took me most of the afternoon to figure out how the thing worked with the tv. No, there weren’t any instructions or a box to look at. After I finally had it on and started turning the channel knob I got a little disheartened. There was plenary of static on the tv. The knobs on the white and orange handle things weren’t working. It was the same on all the major channels. But wait, if I hadn’t slipped into bored mode yet again, I would have never kept turning that knob on each channel until it came back around and finally hit 3.

Channel 3 never had anything broadcasting on it but there was something on it now. My brain did a hoopla stutter and I just stared in wonder. This was a game?! Instinctually I knew those handle grip things would let me play. Of course I put one in one hand and one in the other. It took me a minute to figure out that they were for two separate players. OMG it was like fireworks went off in my entire body. I was so excited that my skin got warm and seemed to be buzzing.

For a solid week, every day, I played that game whenever I could get away from being told to get out of the house and be with my friends. Months past by and I eventually got bored with it. But I wanted more. I wanted something different. When I did eventually stop playing it entirely I found other interests. But that game had changed me. It opened a strange and different kind of adventure door that never closed.

It wasn’t until I heard about a place called an arcade. When my so called destiny called for me. I didn’t even realize why it seemed important. I didn’t know what an arcade actually was but my friends told me that it had games inside. I immediately thought it was some kind of recreational building where people played sports and maybe board games. Boy was I so very delighted on being wrong. The place was loud, it smelled of candy, and there were flashing lights everywhere. I had never seen a pinball game before. But lo and behold, I saw a logo that was familiar. THE VIDEO GAME I had played in my room was inside a tall wooden cabinet with a TV!

Let’s just fast forward about a decade to where arcades weren’t completely populated by pinball, skeet ball, and gofer head batting machines. There were video games of all flavors. At this point in my life, the arcade two towns over was my regular haunt when I was able to walk there during the weekends. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I was officially a hardcore gamer. Most of my allowance money was dumped into that place for years.

As for now? I’m still ‘a heavy’. Games on my phone, tablet, desktop, 4 consoles, and one handheld. I am no where near as hardcore as a good portion of the YouTubers out there making a living off it. But I can proudly say I am a GamR to my bones.