Looking back, it had to be Christmas, 1982. Since there were three kids to buy for on an English Professor's salary, we learned early not to expect the expensive gifts our friends all seemed to be getting. Name-brand clothes (Jordache jeans, Izod shirts) we owned were hand-me-downs from our neighbor across the street. Those neighbors had everything and had everything first: Huffy bikes, MTV, Atari, boom boxes, their own TVs in their rooms, skis, curling irons, you name it. We spent a lot of time hanging out at their house.
So Christmas 1982 rolled around and the five of us exchanged gifts right there in our living room in front of our artificial tree because of Daniel's allergies, and maybe in front of a fire, because it was Boone and it often snowed on Christmas Day. I was 10 years old, in the 5th grade, and can't recall a single gift I opened that year. Maybe a diary, maybe a new jigsaw puzzle, maybe a latch-hook rug kit (I loved those things!) After all of the presents were unwrapped and we were all basking in the Christmas-Day-new-stuff glow, my dad casually walked over to our old worn couch, looked behind it and told us all three to come over. And as we did, we gasped at what we saw. Right there in our very own living room was a brand new Atari system! And not just any old Atari system (Atari 2600, like everyone else on our block had), but the hot new Atari 5200 that no one else we knew had! And so it was, the Lightfeet had Atari 5200, with games such as Pole Position, and Centipede, and Breakout (I became the Breakout Queen, and to this day, I'll challenge any one, any day, any time) and for a good two weeks, the neighborhood kids all wanted to hang out at our house.
No comments:
Post a Comment