Video Game Mania

So recently, or rather last month if you want to call that recent, Matt Conlon made a comment on my baseball post. He said,

I never participated in anything athletic when I was a kid, just never had any interest... I kinda wish these days that I had, cause I don't have any good stories like that... All my stories from childhood are pretty much only about Nintendo... Or Sega

I can relate. My own childhood involved of playing video games on the old 8-bit Nintendo system, or fondly named "the gray box." That thing lasted for years, and saw much game play from myself, my brother and occasionally my sister.

We had 124 games. Out of that number, I had beaten 118 of them. I was a video game wiz. My afternoons after school and my summers consisted of sitting on the floor with the game controller (we upgraded to a better controller a few years later -- this was back in the 1980's) as my eyes locked on the television screen making Mario jump into pipes and stomp on toadstools.

The video game system filled our days and our dreams of computerized graphics that kept bored minds busy. Perhaps if we lived in the city, we would not have had one since we would be close to libraries, or parks, or other recreational activities that would be within walking distance or a bus ride away. Living out in the rural country, all activities involved a 30-minute car ride or more to get to.

Of course, not all of our time involved the gray box. We did get all of our farm chores done, without prodding, before sitting down to play. Whether it was feeding/watering the many animals or mowing half of the 5.6 acres of land we lived on, those chores got done when they needed done.

And I will be the first person to say this. Out of all 118 games that I had beaten, I never once felt the urge to commit violence against other people as many advocates claim happens when children play violent video games. I never took a Samari sword and swung it at a ninja. I never threw an army grenade at the mercenary guards. I never felt the urge of going out and stomping on toadstools... okay, maybe I DID do this last one only because I heard that eating wild mushrooms could be dangerous.

And maybe I did hum the Super Mario Bros song under my breath as I did it.