Star Wars – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

August 6, 2019

Frogger!

Christina is jumping up and down with excitement in front of my bedroom door as Louis, Thea, and I are laying on top of the bed after church and lunch. On Sunday, we usually talk about stuff and share a bit about each others’ week while he powernaps (how can he do that with his eyes open?) and I feed Thea.

“The Flea Market is open until 4!” Christina announces. She’s been wanting to go for a few weeks now, yet we’ve always been too busy & yesterday we built the middle girls their new bed.

So we get to the Flea Market and she zooms to the one spot we always get our games from (always… I haven’t been there in over 2 years). This guy has been in business for over 14 years – sold Becky her second PS1 and our current PS2. Christina has been slowly building a game system & game disc collection of her own. Today both Christina and Becky pull out their debit cards. (This feels weird, as my teens are buying stuff with their own debit cards with their own money!)

I’m a bit proud, a bit sad.

Proud because Christina is managing college, CAP (2^nd Lieutenant now), homeschool, work, and friends mostly on her own and doing a good job at it Proud because Becky raises sweet, lovable Guinea Pigs (Kimberly and Jillian are also partners in this venture), juggles college classes, gymnastics, and her interests well.

Sad because this additional sign of independence just shows me how quickly they are growing.

Usually Sunday is a no-tech day, but since we spent yesterday building the bed and deep cleaning, we allowed video games today.

That’s how we got home, have all 7 children on the couch watching Christina and Becky “test” the two Lego Star Wars PS2 discs, enjoying the four slushies Becky bought while I got gas. Sharing treats, laughing at the games, and enjoying each other’s company – I love this!

Then out comes Christina’s reason for going in the first place… she displays the original PS1 frogger game with a flourish and jumps up and down. “Remember this game, Becky?” And they laugh.

It’s the first game they remember Uncle Buddy playing with them when he brought in their first PS1. They played that one as a 4-player for years (with the special “L” shaped extra Christina didn’t find this trip). They played that with Aunt Mary and Aunt Stacy at the little house behind the Winn Dixie.

Christina says, “Mom, the memories attached to this game are priceless!”

I smiled. So true. I remember playing this with my brothers and sisters (the only 4-player at the time) and the crazy laughter that happened with “bees bees all sorts of bees” and “racing cars” and “the hippos and crocs” and all the other fun nicknames for the levels we had.

I’m watching now as they do another popular big family thing with fast games – pass the controller around after each “death” – taking turns and laughing…

Oh, now they’ve changed frogger’s name to “Gerald” – and keep lauging… “Off the rock, Gerald!” “Not there, Gerald!” (occasionally tossing in other lines from Finding Dory too… my crazy, fun, family!)

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

August 10, 2018

Growing Up Gaming

When you are born into a family that loves board games (Risk, Catan, Life, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Poker are serious around here), discusses Star Ocean and Nancy Drew mysteries as if they are reality (if you walk in and we’re discussing Ned, Bess, and George and whose clue to follow, that’s Nancy Drew, but if we’re debating the character traits of Claude, Dias, and Leon, that’s Star Ocean), gets into serious nerd debates (you know, book versus movie for classics and bouncing theories about Rey’s parents, Gandalf’s childhood, or what cool stories Superman had as a youngster doing chores), and it’s pretty routine to hear someone say, “no, no, he’s a book person,” (unless both parties know the book, which is more common) you are likely to grow up gaming, reading, and being rather serious about such fun.

This is a family thing, since there has probably not been a get together where the verbatim replay of “Meat’s back on the menu” by the uncles and the older cousins didn’t happen. (It’s entertaining, but a bit freaky if you don’t know the movie!)

For me, it was Zork, Teddy Boy, and 3D Adventure (Atari, the huge ducks or dragons that ate you and the castles where you saved the blocks).

My younger siblings introduced me to Playstation (Star Ocean and Legend of the Dragoon) as an 18-year-old. That was cool, except I kept trying to look around the monitor screen instead of turn the view with the controller! My kids know both of those… with their Playstation 2.

We are rather old school when it comes to games… the newest is probably Minecraft. It’s a building exploration game that the girls create elaborate homes and castles in since they can’t run out of bricks (we have a finite amount of Legos and their imaginations are way bigger than the few bricks we have). We actually have two old computers and keep them up because they run our 90s games (and the educational software I own runs on 32 bit instead of the new 64).

It’s always easier to learn something when you smash your head in between their head and the screen…

Lucas considers himself very independent. He likes to load the girls’ Minecraft lands and explore their castles (they call it “destroy” the castles – just like with Legos).

He is very happy when someone discovers him doing this.

(Game rules say electronics after dark… notice the daylight?)

Christina thinks it’s hilarious and calls him “gamer dude” when she sees him with the game phone that was put away for the daytime.

I’m going to slide back into the gaming world… a furious game of Pictionary is happening on the kitchen table right now – and even Lucas is jumping around as Becky sketches two triangles, a round thing, and dozens of dots… this is supposed to represent “Star Wars.”

And this is supposed to be peanut butter… Becky yelps, “Can’t you see Peter Pan?” and circled it…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: Star Wars

Frogger

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Growing Up Gaming

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