I’m starting a new post series called Gratuitous Gaming Memories, or [GGM]. If you aren’t interested in new lil’ Azuriel lore drops, feel free to bounce when you see it. I’m mostly writing these posts for myself – hence the gratuitousness – and for Little Man to discover later, providing that the internet still exists in a recognizable state in ten years. Let’s roll.

My earliest memory of any videogame was the original Super Mario Bros for Nintendo. Getting there requires some setup.

I grew up in relative poverty, in a very poor state. At the time, I did not realize this, and so it didn’t bother me (neither then or even now); that was just how life was. My mother was young when she had me, like around 20, and my father was not much older. They divorced when I was 2 years old which, again, I did not particularly recognize as being outside the norm. Weekdays were spend with mom, weekends were spent with dad. Luckily, they were pretty amicable. Life moved on.

One of the things I always remembered with mom were our “expeditions.” Essentially, just walking around town. I do not recall whether it was a matter of necessity (car not working, etc), to combat boredom, and/or conduct healthy exercise. In any case, keeping a 5-6 year old boy occupied and on-task for a multiple-mile walk was difficult, so we often… kicked rocks. As in, I would kick a hefty rock down the sidewalk, then she would, then I would, and so on. Sometimes the rock would hit a crack at a crazy angle or perhaps you put too much force into it, but that was all part of what kept it fun.

At some point during the walk, I kicked the rock a bit too hard and it bounced up and hit the side of a parked car. Which was sitting in front of perhaps the largest, fanciest house in the small town we lived in. I wanted us to flee the scene, but my mother took us to the open front door and wanted to apologize. I’m not quite sure how the conversation went, but at some point I was sent to wait in the living room with the owner’s kids… just as they turned on Super Mario Bros.

I was transfixed. I don’t even really remember if I got a turn with the controller. In fact, I don’t have any memory at all of the following… however long it was. It’s like a dopamine cigarette burn in my head.

Afterwards, we left, and continued on our expedition. After putting some additional distance between us and the fancy house, we found the next rock for us to kick. I remember that very specifically.

But the seed had been planted.