Childhood is a wild ride. Everything seems at once very new, almost hyper-real and yet incredibly normal. Your world is the world of your family. Whatever world they inhabit or that they construct around you is what makes sense to you, it’s all you know. Only later when you go to school or to a friend’s house do you encounter new, often wildly different ecosystems that shatter your reality.
For example, as an only child, I was intrigued by my friends who had siblings. I studied how they interacted. Sometimes conversations were peaceful, but often, there was a lot of teasing, name-calling (“what are you looking at, butthead?”), physical fighting, among other things. Sometimes I’d get thrown into the mix when I was around, guilt by association, even though I never instigated any conflict. I didn’t mind. It was a new experience, one that I knew I’d never get at home.
Video games were a regular part of life growing up. My dad bought me an NES sometime in 1989 or 1990, and that was it, there they were, just like television and radio, like they’d always been there. My grandpa Popie (not his Christian name, just what I called him) also owned a Commodore 64, and we regularly played Pac-Man and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? together. Again, I thought this was normal, catching ghosts and criminals with a joystick and keyboard, next to my grandfather. He bought the computer and games, of course, not me, I didn’t have any money. I just participated and enjoyed the connection, never thinking that other kids don’t always have this sort of unusual experience.
The next part of this story requires a setup, so please bear with this long and winding road.
Sometime in the early 90s, my cousin Jesse and my aunt Jeannine moved back in with her parents, our grandparents, hereafter known as Grandma and Grandpa (Grandpa is not Popie – Popie is my dad’s dad, while Grandpa is my mom’s dad). Sometime after they moved in, Jesse asked for an NES. Jeannine obliged, on the condition that he could only play after all his homework was complete for the day. With the system came many of the classics: Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninja Gaiden II. But there was also a curious item: 42-in-1, a bootleg cartridge that hailed from Southeast Asia.
42-in-1 had – that’s right – 42 games crammed into one single cartridge. The cartridge was wider and bulkier than a standard NES cartridge, so Jesse and my grandfather "widened" the NES cartridge slot to make it fit (with a flathead screwdriver, I think? Not sure). When turned on, 42-in-1 would display 20 games only. To access the other 22, you'd turn the system off then on again, and there they were, illegal magic right in front of your eyes.
Not all bootleg games/compilations are quality, admittedly, but 42-in-1 bucked the trend. There are first-party Nintendo titles (Super Mario Bros., Pinball, Excitebike), some awesome Famicom games that never released on the NES (B-Wings, Battle City, Front Line), and some fantastic third-party titles (Galaga, Star Force, Bomberman). Not every game is a winner, of course, but with 42 games to choose from, you always have something to play.
Earlier I mentioned that my cousin Jesse was only allowed to play the NES when all his homework was done. Well, Jesse was a good student, so he always held up his end of the bargain. After school, he'd start right away on his homework. Once finished, he'd run to the NES, excited to play... only to find our grandparents sitting in front of the television, transfixed by 42-in-1.
See, while Jesse was at school all day, and my aunt Jeannine was out working, Grandma and Grandpa – both recent retirees - played hours of NES games. Bomberman was one of their favorites, along with Lode Runner, Othello and Battle City. Any game they could share and play together, they did (as an adult, I now find this incredibly sweet). They played so much that Jesse rarely got a chance. Eventually, he told his mom about it, and she confronted them. My grandparents recognized that they were addicted, but they didn't stop playing. Instead, whenever they played, they would set an egg timer for 30-60 minutes. When it dinged, they’d stop.
For context, Grandpa was born in 1926, Grandma in 1930. Grandma was born in Texas to a German family, though both parents were at least second generation. Grandpa was born in Minnesota to a Czech family who had recently emigrated when they saw the Communist writing on the wall. Both lived through the Great Depression and World War II, with Grandpa enlisting at 17 in the Air Force. Grandma got her master’s degree and presumed she’d be a teacher her whole life, but when she married Grandpa in 1952, they had six kids and she was kept extremely busy (no regrets, she says). Thanks to Grandpa being in the military, the family moved everywhere, including random places like East Germany and Sudan. Eventually, Grandpa retired from the Air Force in 1988 at the age of 62. To the best of my knowledge, neither of them had played any video games prior to the NES, but they had already lived a full, rewarding life.
All throughout the 1990s, my grandparents played an excessive amount of NES, like the king and queen they are. My cousin Jesse wasn't the only one to bear witness to this. I did too, often, and I thought nothing of it. At the time, my innocent, undeveloped mind assumed that all kinds of people played video games because video games are awesome. Only in hindsight do I realize how special and amazing this was. 15 years before Wii Sports captivated nursing homes everywhere, my grandparents were blowing up bricks and baddies in Bomberman. In Battle City, they leveled hundreds of enemy tanks. In Lode Runner, they collected all the gold and beat the game dozens of times over. My grandpa even beat the original Super Mario Bros on a semi-regular basis. They knew what they were doing.
My grandparents played NES together for years until my grandpa got sick and passed away in 2002. Grandma just turned 94 last week. The last time I saw her playing NES was six years ago, aged 88. Championship Lode Runner was the game, and she was having a hard time. It was the only game her and Grandpa never beat together.
