Today, I feel like discussing my grandmother's house, gaming there, and gaming with others since then.
First of all, my parents each had fairly large families and I was an only child. Most of my familial interactions came with my grandparents or cousins (of which I had quite a few).
My mother's parents were saints, except that Gram smoked. My only negative memories of that house involve hacking and wheezing. But oh, all the positive memories...
The house was built so that the top floor was above ground level and the main floor was built into the ground. When you would arrive, you'd descend half a dozen natural stone slabs acting as stairs to enter an enclosed porch that led into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, every cabinet, cupboard, and drawer that wasn't filled with dishes, utensils, or pots and pans was instead filled with candy, potato chips, sugary cereal, nestle quick, doughnuts, and other treats for the grandkids (back before these things were bad for you). Gram and Pap loved us dearly and wanted to maximize our fun and enjoyment. And they were good at it.
One common occurrence during the summertime, Gram, my great aunt, and up to three of my cousins would play board and card games late into the night. Since I was usually the oldest grandkid there and the most interested in what we were playing, I was usually the one to choose the game. My favorites were cards (Crazy 8's and Rummy were the best), Monopoly, and Clue, with an honorable mention going out to Boggle.
I loved gaming from an early age. I loved the board, the figures, the components, the chits, the dice. I loved moving figures around and following the process for whatever space they landed in. We played games of Monopoly with free parking jackpots and no property trading that would last 8 hours. I remained engaged throughout.
I also loved having real people to match myself against, until they got tired (and sometimes whiney) and quit. Even better were the gaming snacks. Kitchen-popped popcorn with more melted butter and salt than I should have eaten in a week, 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew or Sunkist, Nestle Crunches and other candy bars.
I would finally crash around 3 or 4 in the morning. Then when I would wake up, it was time for bacon, eggs over easy, toast, and orange juice. Delicious. Amazing. Exactly what I craved. Still love this breakfast.
I learned from Gram and Pap that it's okay to show your love for the people you care about by how you treat them and what you do for them/with them. Ever since they passed, I've been looking for this experience again, but it's so elusive. Most people I've met are too busy, preoccupied, unorganized, or uninterested to unconditionally enjoy active mental experiences with others on a consistent basis.
Allow me to jump forward 10-20 years.
As a present-day fantasy gaming geek, I occasionally gather with friends to play tabletop rpgs, Magic: the Gathering, or some random board game.
The group I think most fondly upon is my first rpg group, which met in a comic book shop near my hometown. It was open gaming with two to four tables each Sunday. At my table, the game was typically D&D and the GM was my best friend.
The gm was a highly imaginative yet sensitive fantasy fan. We would play a game for a couple months, get bored and ask him to run something else, and he would comply. It was public gaming, so anyone could show up; and since our GM didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, we usually ended up with an eccentric crew of noobie players or experienced guys trying out some odd pet character concept on the kids table.
Thus, it was always a juvenile affair full of shallow but quirky two-dimensional power-gamed characters, trite plots, and random monsters in evocative ruins that always led to an amazing melodramatic midboss setpiece encounter. It was a glorious mess and I miss it dearly.
Since then, all the groups I've been in have been flawed in some social way. The most recent, only by having too few people able to attend regularly due to familial commitements. In short, I'm still trying to put together the perfect group and recapture the past. I'm hoping my childhood wasn't a fluke and that I can once again find meaning through activity with others in addition to my ability to find meaning while alone.
Two loose ends to tie up before I sign off:
#1, my honorable mention of Boggle - it wasn't my favorite due to its logical simplicity and small number of accessible parts. But I did enjoy that it was unlike any of the other games we would play: quick, simple, and required vigorous shaking. I also like that Gram was pretty crafty and could occasionally suprise me with the words she would find. And when she did, I loved watching that priceless "look what I found" grin form upon her face.
#2: the kitchen table upon which we played is currently in my living room and it's still used for gaming. It seems appropriate.
Until next time,
Taz
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