Someone just mentioned this on facebook and it brought up a flood of memories for me...I'm actually in the process of doing a concert of classic video game music so my relationship to various games has been coming up a lot - looking at their role in different stages of my life.
When my friend Cameron posted "you have died of dysentery" I instantaneously zoomed back into my 8 year old body. I remembered it so vividly...I used to play that game for hours. I was in the 3rd grade, it was when stuff with my mom really started to escalate... magnify...intensify...at a much more rapid rate. She would forget about picking me up at school a lot, regularly running up to 2 hours late or not showing up at all. As I waited I would play Oregon Trail on the school computer. It was a big deal that we had a computer and that it had a game that wasn't just an education program. I focused on that while I waited, until the next decision had to be made. It kept me from being hysterical (at least externally).
That year I became a walker.
My grandfather dropped me off in the morning and I walked home from school in the afternoon.
I started to love walking home.
I loved when school would end and it was my turn to leave.
There was no waiting - I just went...off into the glorious world alone.
I eventually began walking with my friend Kate who lived just down the street - the beginning of a very important friendship that got me through some even tougher years to come...
1988 - I did not die of dysentery.
2011 - anyone who knows me knows that I'm an avid pedestrian and I walk on average between 3-5 miles a day...you have made it to Seattle...press SPACE BAR to continue...
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