Mon Dec 26, 2011 10:27 am by Jay See Double You
MONDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1989; 1411 22ND ST. APT 3, DES MOINES, IOWA
At the time, we lived in the ghetto in a single 12 unit apartment building. Alright, so we lived in apt 3, which was the NE unit on the bottom floor. Apartment 10, the SW unit on the top floor (the furthest unit from us) will be important later in the story. Anyway, it's Christmas eve, and I can't sleep. My younger brother, Jesse (8yrs old) and I share a bedroom, and my bed was right under the window. The window afforded a good view of the night sky to the southeast. I lay in bed, 9 years old, going on 10, sleepless, watching the sky for any sign of a certain airborne, venison propelled carriage with single red headlight, commandeered by our favorite bearded rotundite. Instead, all I saw were a swath of stars, muted by the city's glow, winking back at me as if to say "we know, we're watching for him too...he'll be by" and the KCCI weather beacon…which could care less about such trivial matters, singularly focused, and obsessed to the point of mania with whether it was going to be hotter, colder, dry, or wet." But the search for Santa did at last prove sufficiently exhausting, and I finally fell asleep.
When I'm awakened, mom and/or dad is shaking me telling me I have to get out of bed right away. Whichever one is not waking me is busy at work on rousing my brother, who is far less receptive than I. They're telling us that we have to get up in a hurry because there's a fire. I didn't believe them. I thought this was all just a clever ruse to get us up so we could open presents. But as I left the room, I began to smell the tale-tell smell, and knew then that they weren't kidding. As we left the apartment to enter the hallway, there was a flurry of people, most of whom I recognized vaguely as other tenants, but few that I could name or even assign to specific apartments. There were also firemen milling about, trying to get us out.
Mom vigorously herded us out to the safety of the blue four-door 1975 Chevy Nova that was our car, while Dad ran back in to secure a uniquely valuable item. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Apartment 10 was the unit that was on fire (fully ablaze), but since we were completely diagonal from it both horizontally and vertically, we were not in imminent danger. The entire building was still being evacuated, but for those not on either the third floor, or in the apartments directly below 10, it was merely a precautionary measure.
Well, we're out in the car seeing the red glow in the sky, (the flames themselves obscured by the building), and the hustle, and bustle, and commotion. We nearly fail to notice Dad run towards, around, and finally behind the car to load a blanket wrapped something into the trunk. I do not remember this detail myself, but mom insists that at least at some point, I'm sitting in the car singing "We didn't start the fire" demonstrating for all just what kind of grasp I had of the gravity and severity of the situation playing itself out before us. We spend who knows how much time out there in the car. I don't remember feeling like it was a long time. When the all clear was given, Dad rushed the covered object back in the house, and then we all went back inside. I don't remember having any trouble getting to sleep this time. Dad stayed out in the living room in case the fire re-ignited. I'm not sure whether or not he got any more sleep.
When Mom and Dad woke us up next, it was with assurances that there was no emergency this time, but instead, it was time to get up and open presents. We pad out in our PJs, and take residence in the shadow of the majestic old aluminum tree with the trusty color wheel buzzing its way through the cycle of red, green, blue, and yellow. Then the customary organized chaos ensues, and the presents are revealed. We got some Transformers from my Uncle Paul (r.i.p. 2004), the transformers will come up again in this story, and several other things which I cannot remember. Then Dad hands Jesse and I each a squarish package, and we unwrap them...they're NES cartridges, he's holding Donkey Kong Jr. and I'm holding Excitebike. Jesse and I look at each other confused, and I begin to try to straighten Dad out. If this is not verbatim, it's darn close: "Oh wow! Thank you, Dad! Thank you very much! But these are Nintendo games. We have an Atari. You see, Nintendo is a way cooler, more powerful system, and our Atari just can't play them." (It's the "You see" that makes that so great!) Anyway, Dad just sits there and listens, the grin on his face getting bigger and bigger. When I'm done, he plays dumb, and says "Oh, my mistake! Well, in that case, here you go" and he reaches back behind the couch and pulls out a much larger wrapped package. We unwrap it and, of course, it's an NES (w/SMB/Duck Hunt, two controllers and the zapper.)
I don't remember anything from the next 30 or so minutes, besides Jesse and I going absolutely berzerk. Mom tells me that I was running and jumping up and down the hallway of our apartment shouting "I can't believe it's mine!" They had also acquired a used 13" color TV (which, compared to the old 9" B&W that we were using for our Atari, was quite an upgrade) to hook the NES up to. The NES and color TV were set up in the Living room where the Atari was. The Atari and its TV were moved to the bedroom (they didn't want both the NES and the Atari hooked up to the 13" due to a misconception that this would do damage to the TV and/or the systems. This is also why we didn't simply have them hooked up to the 19" TV that was always in the living room as the one we watched TV on...that, and also so Dad could watch TV and we could play games without there being a conflict)
So, Jesse and I start playing, and it's almost too good to be true. It doesn't seem real. Or more to the point, everything -does- seem real. When you've got details in the characters, and animation, and highly detailed environments, and reasonable music, after coming off one room universe gaming with characters that are more akin to fonts than to sprites, and very basic environments with little to no detail or music, everything just seems totally epic! At some point, we let mom play Mario, and she plunges headlong right into the first goomba. When she finally masters the concept of jumping on/over the goombas, things go smoothly until she encounters her very first pit, and its enticement proves too great to resist. Well, by that time, we're ready to take back the controller. Patience has limits, you know.
A little while later, we're told that Uncle Paul is on his way and to make sure he knows how much we appreciated the transformers.....the transformers! That's right! We had totally forgotten! So, when the knock comes on the door, I rush up, grab the transformer, answer the door and thank him profusely for the transformer. To underscore and futher sell him on the half-honest interest, and completely dishonest zeal, I bring the transformer with me to demonstrate it's transformative prowess when the unthinkable happens....it breaks! I stand locked in shock and horror for a moment....then go back to the Nintendo. After a while, Paul is coaxed into giving it a try with virtually identical results to Mom's....and that was Christmas 1989. The most memorable Christmas of my life!
Now, we found out some more details on Apartment 10 a little later. Apparently the mother either came home drunk or got drunk at home, and fell asleep on the couch with a lit cigarette in her mouth. This caused a chain reaction of events, which led to me singing we didn't start the fire from a parked car in the middle of the night. The woman was apparently okay except for a little singe. Nobody died in the fire, but they lost everything. She had a boy who was more or less our age, who we had seen a handful of times, probably played with once or twice, but never got close to. I don't even remember his name. We also found out that we were not going to be the only children that year who would realize their mega-dream of receiving an NES for Christmas...of course, his Nintendo was ruined, along with everything else. Obviously, they moved away after that, and I never knowingly saw or heard from/about him again.
I hope that the experience hasn't scarred him, and I hope that his life has gone better since. I hope that he got his Nintendo, and I would like to get the chance to speak with him again (but not knowing his name, or anything about him, what are the chances?) So our day of extreme joy paired concurrently with his day of extreme pain, plus the respect and admiration for my parents engendered by the contrast between his mother who got drunk and started a fire, and my mother who whisked us out, and my father, who rushed back in (not knowing it was safe) to rescue our NES, risking his life, as it were, over a video game, because he knew it would mean the world to his boys, plus the fact that everything on the third floor was seriously smoke damaged, and the two apartments directly below 10 had dramatically serious water damage (including pronounced bows in the ceilings).....in the final analysis, the memory is a bittersweet one.
Proud member of the Orbis 720 League since April 1, 2012! Keepin' it real...locked down!
). It's a gift tradition held on 5th of December. Some people choose either Christmas or Sinterklaas as a gift celebration. My Sinterklaas largely are made of toy memories as I had a large collection of Star Wars and M.A.S.K. toys and later G.I.Joe (second version). Apparently I was so content with my Atari 2600 and Pitfall that it never came up to beg for a NES and probably wouldn't be able to get games for it (and games would rank up in price to over 100 guilders, then about 200 US dollars), although I played my sister's NES at my sisters house (as she is 10 years older then me) and my brother in law's ColecoVision. As from the 16-bit generation I was able to buy my Megadrive myself as I worked for it, parttime, at my dad's factory from age 14 or so. All my handhelds I bought on vacations at tax free islands like Canary Islands.
