To: Luke
From: Owen
Re: Review Review
My best friend Richard and his wife have a new home - it's the house where he grew up, back in our hometown. They're in the process of moving, cleaning, rearranging, sorting out what goes where and all that. Down in the basement Richard stumbled across that - his Pac-Man bookbag from third grade.
Despite the rusted buckles and stains, or perhaps indicative of them, it looks like it hasn't been disturbed since the third grade, either, which was 1981-1982 for those keeping score.
Richard and I were video game fiends at that age, like most any eight-year-old then or since. My family had the Atari 2600 - that's where we played Pitfall!, Space Invaders and, of course, those terrible, terrible ports of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Richard's dad, later in 1982 if I recall, picked up an Atari 5200. On that we played Star Raiders, Centipede and a vastly superior Pac-Man. (And even a few years later you could sometimes catch his dad indulging in a game of Frogs & Flies, thanks to the 2600 adapter.)
I'm delighted to hear that the old house, where I also made dozens of fond memories, is staying in the family, and I'm looking forward to visiting Richard there over the holidays. It'll feel like old times.
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