A life of little spacemen and some golden memories

The upcoming arrival of July 8 will set off a celebration in honor of National Video Game Day that will serve as a reminder of glorious days gone by for many people my age.

Now, that exact age is none of your business, but just let me say that I was too young to remember when JFK was assassinated and leave it at that. It’s bad enough that I’m already being asked if I am a senior citizen at golf courses and movie theaters around the area, but I digress.

Anyway, National Video Game Day serves as a reminder of much lazier, less stressful days for me as I’m sure it does for a lot of young-old people.

I’m quite certain that my kids would make fun of the old Atari gaming system that produced wonderful games like Pong, Haunted House and a host of other invigorating games that most kids would find ultimately boring today, but back in the 1970s they were incredible.

Thinking back, the one game I truly enjoyed the most was the hand-held Mattel football game with the little blips, the darkest red one being you with the football, the six lighter red ones being the defenders who would try to chase you down.

That game was captivating to me because rarely did I fail to score, even at the toughest level. Any success is great, even if it’s a spasmodic thumb causing a tiny dash to dart across a screen the width of a credit card.

But that old Atari, that provided ample joy to myself and my brothers as we wiled away winter days when whiffle ball was out of the question due to the awful weather.

While the graphics were infantile compared to today’s technology, one thing that remains the same today as it was yesterday was the thrill to compete against a game. No matter the graphics, when it comes to the adrenaline of having to accomplish a task at hand to beat any game, it gets those competing amped up.

Whether it was Frogger, Kaboom!, Breakout, Basketball or Asteroids, once you got your hands on the controller it was game on.

That old Atari provided some classic moments in my youth.

I can still recall when in 1979 my friend and neighbor Bob Schlabach purchased the newest gaming system, Intellivision. We were in utter awe at the improved graphics, which again, would have paled in comparison to today’s realistic graphics.

We invested plenty of time in the Boxing game, where the improved graphics allowed this Mennonite pacifist to duke it out without ever really hitting anyone.

As we entered the 1980s we entered a new realm of entertainment, that being Dave Schlabach’s Game Room.

Yes, the same Dave Schlabach who eventually became a legendary girls’ basketball coach in Ohio.

Dave had his game room in the basement in what now is the Dutch Cupboard in Berlin. He had loads of gaming consoles like Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Pac Man, pinball machines and my personal favorite, Galaga.

Even back as a youngster Dave had this incredible gift of entrepreneurism, and his game room was the hottest spot for teens to pump quarters into games and spend an afternoon or evening. He also served pretty killer Trail and Swiss sandwiches, which kept us sated as we spent our day slaving away at the controls of our favorite game.

I just can’t imagine a more carefree time than those days, when we didn’t worry about jobs, taxes, supporting our family, the economy and the countless other issues adults deal with on a daily basis.

It was just us against those aggravating, tiny space invaders then went faster and faster the lower they got until it seemed as though they were traveling at light speed as we tried to stop them from destroying the world.

Then came college, where my freshman roommate Jeff Major possessed the only gaming console in our rundown Lincoln dorm at Bluffton College.

That had its Pitfall, which ironically was the game of choice for what seemed like half the guys on campus who would flood into our tiny dorm room at every hour day and night for entertainment.

It got so bad that when two-a-days started for baseball, I had to find other sleeping arrangements because either someone was playing games at 2 a.m. of Jeff was sweeping the floor after all of the gamers were gone at 3 a.m.

My best friend Dave Sluss, who along with his wife Naomi served as Lincoln head residents, had a Commadore 64 gaming system that we played a ton. The graphics continued to improve, and we thoroughly played the tar out of Olympics, which featured a decathlon of games like skiing, swimming and running. I was always Team Canada and we never failed to rub it in when we emerged victorious, another fantastic by-product of the gaming life.

Yep, over my wonder years I played my fair share of games as systems developed and blossomed and now have become an overwhelming part of young people’s lives and even some adults.

I’ll never have those days back, but I will always have the memories of golden years spent with friends, laughing, competing and making fun of each other as we went for broke on the video games of my youth.