This memory was brought to the surface by a discussion of old arcade games going on in comments. I don’t recall whether I’ve ever mentioned it before but during the 1980s I spent an enormous amount of time in bowling alleys all over the country. Big ones. Small ones. California. South Dakota. Wisconsin. Louisiana. New Jersey. My client, Brunswick, was paying me to do it. I’m probably the only person in the world to have done a general systems analysis of a bowling alley—operations, the business side, accounting, the whole shebang.
At lot of my time was spent trouble-shooting. When you’re there to trouble-shoot, you end up with a lot of dead time on your hands—until trouble pops up which it may never do. Then it’s, you know, in case of emergency break glass.
Now, there are only so many things you can do when you’re killing time in a bowling alley. You might be able to bowl but league bowling schedules frequently make that impossible. You can drink but, er, that kind of impairs your ability to trouble-shoot. Or you can play arcade games. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent playing arcade games. Hundreds? Probably.
I don’t remember where the alley was but one evening I was there, playing arcade games as usual, and I noticed I was attracting an audience, mostly nine to twelve year old boys. After, perhaps, twenty minutes of silent watching one of the older boys, presumably deputized by the group, walked up behind me and said over my shoulder “You’re pretty good for a grownup.”
I took it as a compliment.
You must have been an amazing hand at Pac-Man. I wish my job made me play video games all day.
My kids were quite impressed at my Super Mario skills on Wii; I’ve overheard them brag to their friends. It may be the only thing that impresses them about me. Anyway, that was from ColecoVision.
A supreme compliment that they even spoke to you.
Heh, my son and I play World of Tanks on-line. I think I’m the only parent amongst his peers that even knows what an MMO is. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. :p