Echoes of yesteryear

The title sounds pretentious, I know.

All it really means for me today is thinking about this time of year when I was a kid. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1986 and never stopped. When I was younger, it as all consuming. As much as I could get my friends to play was still not enough. They were into as well, I was not dragging them kicking and screaming into caves guarded by dragons or the dark streets of Waterdeep as we chased a member of the thieves guild. But I always wanted to play more than we did. This time of year as a kid, we stopped wanting to be outside, basketball, hackey sack, riding bikes, hill parties; it was just too cold. So we retreated into the houses and garages, our lairs. We played endless, countless hours of video games, card games and best of all role playing games. We were gamers all year long but come winter time and sub-zero weather we ascended to a higher level. I can remember weekends where we started playing just after dinner time on a Friday and only stopped when we realized the sun had come up on Saturday morning. We would then crash out on couches, extra beds, the floor, a recliner. Just a pile of teenagers sleeping off a 13 hour game only to wake up a few hours later and do it again until Sunday at sunrise. We easily jammed in 20-30 hours of gaming in a single weekend.

I have a hard time imagining that now, adulthood and its many responsibilities and fragilities might make it a bit less fun. But this time of year, especially when there is a foot of snow outside, man I think back to that time. I spent so much time as a swordsman wandering Greyhawk, a Elven Street Samurai in the dystopian future of Shadowrun, or as a Vampire vying for control of Seattle against the old guard. Those and a 1000 other lifetimes and adventures. Having all those memories and them being so concentrated around this time of year, I wouldn’t trade them or the snow and cold away for anything.