Arcades

Picture it, Sicily 19.... Oh, wait, wrong blog. Picture it: coastal Delaware, somewhere in the mid-1980s. Growing up at the beach in the 80s was an absolute dream. My parents worked long hours at our restaurant. My sister was a baby and took up what little time they had afterward. That left me to fend for myself like any good Gen-Xer for 90% of the day. I had a few kids I hung with in the neighborhood. We spent all day roaming around town. The only rule we had was to stay out of the ocean unless the lifeguards were on duty. I had a huffy BMX bike, and it was my whole world. Unfortunately, it was not a Mongoose, but we couldn't afford such a luxurious brand. I rode that bike every day, all day, up and down the highway, in and out of beach traffic. We had sort of a schedule: breakfast at my restaurant, lunch at Dairy Queen, and dinner at my friend's restaurant. In the time between, we hit the arcades and the beach. The Dairy Queen had 2 video games, Pac-Man and Galaga. I got pretty ok at Galaga, registering my initials in the top 5. I was ok at Pac-Man but it wasn't my favorite. After our lunch break with Galaga, we would make our way down to the proper Arcade. The local one was pretty small with maybe 15 games. It had all the popular titles of the time. I was fond of Dig Dug, Centipede, and Asteroids. I will have to assume we got our game money from the parents or the odd jobs we did. In the restaurant business, there is no short supply of busy work that child labor could handle. Dishwashing was my favorite, and honestly, it still is one of my favorite jobs in a restaurant. I will take you through that thought process another time. When we got really adventurous, we would risk life and limb and venture into Ocean City. This was a really big no-no because in the summer it was pretty dangerous crossing the road that separates Maryland from Delaware. I have told this story on the podcast; the arcade just over the line had a claw machine with cigarettes as the prize. I got really adept at claw machines in those days. In the back of the arcade lived the Skee-ball machines. They spit tickets that you could redeem for junk from China. Most of the stuff that was actually attainable was probably filled with lead and the tears of children forced into factories. Of course, they always had the big prizes, but honestly, I can't imagine anyone actually had the required number of tickets. As summer faded into fall and our respective restaurants closed, the arcades did as well. In the winter, we would venture to the mall, and we could sneak a game or two in. But for me, arcades symbolize endless summer days riding bikes and swimming in the ocean. The ultimate in freedom that frankly we lack today. I don't just mean that kids today miss out on the freedom I mean, we as adults miss out on. One day, we played our last quarter and never saw the significance. We wished away our freedom in the pursuit of adulthood, falsely believing it would somehow be better when we could drive or go to bars. Youth is wasted on the young. Now we are saddled with obligations, unreal expectations, and the pressure to have the perfect Instagram-worthy life. We had it, and we didn't even know it. All we can do now is hope we can recover those reckless days in our golden years. As I said in this week's episode, let's make our retirement homes a mall we never have to leave until it's Game Over.

-Heather