When I was eight years old, I didn't play video games. I simply
didn't understand them. Pinball was what appealed to me, with its
physical playfield and real action. Bells and lights and mechanical
flippers and gravity.
That all changed during a camping trip one summer.
This
was before the era of minivans and SUVs. Off we would drive, with a
big square car-top carrier stuffed with tents, clothes, and other
supplies strapped to the roof of a turquoise Volkswagen Rabbit. My
little brother and I sat in the back seat, separated by a big red
Coleman cooler with a metal latch. The cooler drastically cut down on
punching, poking, and other brotherly feuds over seat space or nasty
faces. It also provided easy access to crackers, fruit snacks, and
juice boxes during the drive.
Every summer, we would go somewhere for a whole
week. We would either rent a house near the beach, or take two tents to
a campground. Those were our standard vacations. Not glamorous,
rarely even out of state, but affordable and varied. This particular
year, they were combined; a forest campground near a beach. The best of
both worlds.
Midway through the week, I was waist deep in the
ocean, just kind of hanging out with my father. Small waves lapped
against our bodies in the bright sun. A few dozen other people milled
around in the water or lay on the sand. Suddenly, I spied a dollar,
floating along on top of the water. I couldn't believe it. This was
magic. I don't think I had much of a concept of money at the time, but I
knew what it was on the most basic level. I looked around for someone
approaching to retrieve it, but no such presence appeared. I snatched
it up and stared at it. My father told me to be sure and hang on to it.
I don't know what we ate for dinner that night. I
can guess that it was Hamburger Helper. It was certainly something that
was cooked on the little propane stove, and served around a rough-hewn
picnic table on the plastic sectioned plates that we used for many
years' vacations.
After dinner, I wandered over to the campground
office. I had money, and I was just old enough to go off on my own. At
least in this setting. My brother was not, and besides, who wanted to
hang out with him anyway? I knew I had seen something in the office
during our check-in; something fun, something that needed money to do.
I walked in. There was only a ping pong table, an upright video game
cabinet, and a split door to the back room where the campground manager
spent the day. No pinball. The office was empty. I was all alone, so
ping pong was out. So I looked at the video game. I peered at the
screen, where a rocket ship moved back and forth, dodging bullets
dropped by big bugs. It was strange to me. I wished there was a
pinball machine. But short of other options, I decided to try out this
abstract, spectral, yet imposing gadget with dangerous-looking text on the side.
Tentatively, I put my first ever very own dollar into the change
machine, and received the four quarters that tumbled into the hopper. I
returned to the arcade cabinet, and dropped the first one in...
I don't remember how my first game went. Of course,
it must have been very short. But I do know that I used all four
quarters, one after the other. I had to try again and again! That
night, in a small wood paneled room somewhere in the wilderness of the
Pine Barrens, Galaga taught me the vagaries of the joystick. The weird
beauty of noises that simple oscillators can make. The freedom of the
video screen, and the rapture of its glow. I suppose it could have been
any game of the time. Any game could have been there to open this
world for me. But there was only one machine in that room. There was no
Burger Time, or Dig Dug, or Pacman. No Space Invaders, no Joust, no
Defender. There was only Galaga.
