Food Court in Emeryville

Every Friday, Aidee goes to dinner at the Food Court in Emeryville. She started doing this when I was underway on the ship. I protested and resisted this ritual for awhile. Jenkins Family Friday Night turned into Aidee and Paige go to the Food Court, Lil Dave and Dad go someplace else. Aidee argued for the Food Court because of the variety, the relative cheap prices, and because you don’t have to tip. I argued against the Food Court because of the atmosphere. I haven’t really given up my argument, but it occurred to me the other night that I have been to the Food Court the past three Friday Nights.

Anyway, next to the Food Court is the Supermarket sized Borders Books and Music store. You eat dinner, you browse books and music. So, the family quickly separates and I find myself in line at the coffee shop. The retard at the cash register spends about six minutes trying to process the debit card of the guy in front of me… By the time I get my coffee a huge line … well, there’s not really room for a line, so a large number of people have amassed at the counter and the guy is beginning to freak out to the point of blurting out, “I always get nervous when it gets really busy!”

I got my coffee just in time. So, I meander through the bookstore browsing at overpriced books and looking for the family. Aidee is looking at English Grammar books. Paige is looking at CDs. And where do you think Lil Dave is? Lil Dave is in the Game Aisle parked in front of the genre of books titled “Video Games” . That’s right. Dave’s crouched on the floor dissecting a magazine-sized book dedicated to Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing” for Gamecube. “Interesting”, I think. When I was a kid, you just played Video Games. I suppose it’s inevitable, it’s probably not even the first of its kind, It just happens to be the first of it’s kind that I’ve noticed or recall noticing, and there it is, practically jumping off the bookstand; The Coffee Table sized tribute to the pop culture phenomena of Video Games entitled “Supercade”, featuring video games from 1971 to 1983. Ahh! Games that I, DAD, can relate to! Does anyone remember when joysticks had four cardinal directions and four inter-cardinal directions and one button?

It was in this book that I found a section dedicated to the Video Game System that my family owned back in the early 80’s, the Odyssey 2 Game System. I have often told my son about this System, but have never been able to find one to show him. It is for this reason that he insists on keeping his first Nintendo Game Console gathering dust on the shelf in the garage; So he can show his kids someday. Never mind that this was the Nintendo Game System that my lil Brother and I had back in the late 80’s, a good 7 or 8 years before Dave was born. Anyway, do you think that Lil Dave cares one iota about the ancient looking design and graphics of the Odyssey 2? No. Not one. I flip the page and there’s the old picture of mom, dad, brother, and sister with big grins on their faces playing some ultra-realistic space shoot-em up game on the Odyssey 2. I say to my boy, “Boy, look how much fun video games used to be. They brought the whole family together.” My son looks at me like he at least appreciates that his dad makes the attempt at humor - then quickly turns back to his book on “Animal Crossing” - hints, tips, and tricks.

Flipping through the pages of “Supercade” brought back such wonderful memories! I nearly cried. Worse, I nearly spent 49.95 for this treasure-trove of preserved 70’s and 80’s video game nostalgia. But I didn’t. If I had 50 bucks to spend idly, I’d put it into a new mouse for the computer in Lil Dave’s room…That this mouse if failing doesn’t seem to bother anyone, it’s just treated as a matter-of-fact, much the way that we used to treat blowing into game cartridges to get them to work as a matter-of-fact.