Recently my kids came home more than a little excited after visiting a garage sale up the street. They had brought their own money and I expected them to come home with a bucket of golf balls or maybe an old comic book. But instead they combined their money and purchased a radio. Not a cd player. Or even a boom box. But a transistor radio from 1972 that only has AM channels. Do you even remember when AM was our only option for radio? I don’t remember that, and I am pretty old. But my kids hurried to find a 9 volt battery to see if their 50 cent investment still worked. I heard cheers of joy when the first scratchy sounds came thru. From that day forward they have carried their AM radio to the backyard, to their room and is currently being listened to while one of them is in the bath. If I didn’t know any better you would think my kids were living in some bio-dome of tech advancement depravity, and not the children of tech gadget junkie who has provided each of them with iPods, iTouchs, cellphones, playstations, Wii, satellite car stereo and any other electronic toy for their enjoyment. So I laughed at their love of the little AM radio, which is incidentally shaped to resemble a police siren. As I our last summer days were being played out to the soundtrack of AM sport channels and numerous Mexican polka tunes, I was sure this new love of all things old would be over soon.
Until today. Today they again pooled their money they earned helping their grandma around her house and purchased an ancient Nintendo Entertainment System (Or a ‘NES’ if you are trying to be cool) from a friend with an older brother who helped a neighbor clean out their garage. This is the NES with the graphics that are only one generation away from the elementary TV arcade game of Pong; more implied one-dimensional figures then actual graphics. And games with accompany music and sound effects that make them seem like they were generated using a telephone keypad. So they are sitting in front of our 60” plasma High Definition television playing a game that requires CORDS to the controllers. Which requires them to sit in the middle of the room and look up at the TV screen as if they came late to the movie and were forced to sit in the front row. But they laugh and giggle and are generally excited to play the original Mario Brothers ‘from the olden days’. I beg them to turn the volume down so I don’t go insane from the incessant ‘music’ and they beg me to have a turn at the controls.
They are shocked to know that I never owned a NES. We had Pong. But then I grew up and totally missed the whole NES thing. So when I fail miserably at the games they ask me about the video games of my childhood. And I get the opportunity to explain to them we played arcade games up at the local market. One quarter a turn for Galaxy or PacMan. They ask me about my high score and I remember I always preferred to play the old neglected pinball machines instead. Which lights up their faces, as they say ‘see you liked the old stuff too’. And I did, leaving the new fancy arcade games for my older brother to master. Pinball was simple and uncomplicated. Which I guess the same thing can be said about my boys old NES machine. In that moment it occurs to me, maybe that was what they were after….is simplicity. Could it possibly be that for all the life-like graphics,multilevel plot lines and variegating fight sequences found in the new video games are leaving kids more stressed and overwhelmed than relaxed and happy when they play? Maybe new isn’t better to them. Maybe old, simple and basic are all they need to have a good time.
We have come to a new understanding and I have agreed to stop teasing them about their latest purchase, and they have agreed to stop teasing me about my low score on Mario Brothers. Of course I may have also agreed to buy an old Pong game on eBay. After all, I need to beat them at something.
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