So while I didn’t walk 5 miles to school in the snow, I did experience the colossal disappointment that was the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man first hand, and I thought he might need to understand my pain and experience a bit more intimately. He has no real sense of the Old Gold games, and that’s a crying shame. He is enjoying at the moment, and the thought occurred to me that he is experiencing modern video games devoid of their beautifully vectorized history.

More recently, we’ve been focusing on video games. I haven’t been able to convince him of my opinions on the far superior quality of the original trilogy, but I am working on it. When I found out he hadn’t seen the real Star Wars movies (namely episodes IV, V, and VI 1/2) I lent him my DVDs and asked him to think about where our shared myth system began. Our relationship began benignly enough talking about Lego Star Wars sets, the associated video games, and the current state of Star Wars culture more generally. My 12 year-old neighbor feels the brunt of my unfortunate condition. Whether it be Star Wars (and this encompasses everything from the movies to figurines to stickers to trading cards to comic books to UnderRoos), Raiders of the Lost Ark, Clash of the Titans, Pac-Man, our first family VHS player, or the Atari 2600, culture from the late 70s and early 80s is the wellspring of my strong penchant for nostalgia. I just can’t avoid the fact that I have never really progressed beyond the sixth grade I am still so dearly enthralled by the product-inspired wonder of my youth. I recently came to the realization that my best friend in Fredericksburg is my 12 year-old neighbor.

Joust arcade game emulator for mac