Nostalgia

I don’t consider myself a very nostalgic person. There are things that I wish I still had from my childhood that have since been sold, but not enough to go on eBay to reclaim them. As many who know me already know, I think the 1980’s are the least interesting decade politically, culturally, and artistically since 1900. The 90’s don’t rate much higher. Perhaps I have idealized visions of the eras prior to my birth since I didn’t have to live through those decades. There is a lot I would’ve endured that I’ve been lucky enough to skip out of being born in the early 80’s. I guess, if anything, I’m nostalgic for various opportunities I never got to experience if that doesn’t contradict the definition of nostalgia.

I bring this up because I had a very bizarre experience reading an article on AVClub.com about the Super Mario Bros. movie. I have no affiliation to this film whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve even seen it the whole way through once. But one image in the article shook me in a way that I’ve never experienced and I can only hope that you have a similar reaction to it:
I felt a tingle come over my body for about two seconds and my mind was transferred to my childhood and getting the NES. I remembered playing in my room in the first house I ever lived in. One morning, waiting for my ride to school with a friend playing Ice Hockey and missing the horn and the knocks on the door and having to walk to school late that morning. I remembered getting mad when people got my sisters games because the NES was mine!

I forgot about the packaging of the games entirely, remembering just the gray (most of the time) cartridges lined up around my TV. I collected over 40 games by the time I moved onto Sega, but I always returned (or tried to, sometimes the NES was a bit cranky) the NES and the classic games.

I remembered playing in the garage in my parent’s current house listening to my parent’s records (at least the few half decent ones). My dad playing Jaws and getting farther than I ever got using the NES Advantage controller. And I remembered losing two of my dad’s favorite Nintendo games, Duck Tales and Marble Madness. I remembered playing on a 13 inch TV. I remembered the hundreds of ways to try to get the cartridges to work.
I remembered moving it up to my bedroom in the attic and becoming increasingly frustrated trying to play when all it wanted to do was crap out. I remembered taking the system apart with my dad and making it work again somehow. And I remembered having to go buy a new Legend of Zelda because the battery in my old one had died (and learning that the games had batteries in them!).

It seems a little sad to me to be this nostalgic over a video game system and maybe that’s because I’m not that nostalgic. But I find playing Wii these days that I play the old NES games that I download far more than the games made for Wii. And truth be told, some of my favorite memories of childhood come from playing video games with friends. I never wanted to relive my childhood, but seeing the Super Mario Brothers box not only made me want to, but it made me wish I could.