When I was a kid a found tennis ball was gold. It meant insurance. It meant we'd be able to play more sacred street hockey once the current ball got lost or fell apart. Yes they fell apart after awhile. Quicker if it was a newish ball when we'd obtained it and were forced to puncture it in order to tame it a little. Too much bounce was not good for a hockey ball.
But as we grew our boundaries grew and we enveloped a couple new kids who were serious tennis players and then we had all the balls we wanted and then we hit high school and grew deeper pockets and bought proper hockey balls.
A song you loved was gold. You'd wait a week before managing to catch the song on the radio when you were ready with a blank cassette tape to record a crackly version, the intro missing or dulled under a DJ's chant. These days kids grab any song they want, I guess, from the internet.
A James Bond movie was gold to a young kid. And once or twice a year City TV would host a James Bond festival. Two or three a night for a whole week! It was paradise. These days kids grab any movie they want, I suppose, from the internet. I don't know what they do for gold.
Once every couple months I would manage to scrape together eight or ten bucks plus bus fare and journey to the mall. I might get a vinyl single or an album or, right across from the A&A was the hobby store, Leisure World. And there they had the Dungeons & Dragons campaign modules; at least a dozen to choose from at any given time. I would peruse each one at great length, just the front and back covers through the clear plastic wrappers. The art work; the synopses; titles like The Curse of Xanathon or The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh!
I collected about a dozen of these over the course of my entire childhood and adolescence. As the Dungeon Master I'd study these adventures carefully and then creatively insert them into the ongoing campaign which my friends; the players always enjoyed.
In the last three days I acquired... two hundred and forty more of these modules... and counting. All the classic modules from the eighties are now available on the internet, downloadable for free.
It's raining gold. An embarrassment of riches. I don't know what I will possibly do with them all but knowing they were out there and for free... I couldn't possibly not have them.
Help Helen Naslund, victim of abuse... and the justice system.
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| Christmas gifts for my Minecraft friends |
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