On Parental Influence

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2022-01-20 21:00:09

My parents didn’t have much money when I was growing up. Life has been very hard for them. I don’t believe they’ve been on a vacation in 4 decades, simply because they couldn't afford it. "It's always been one thing after another."

When I was 8, my father was involved in a car accident that left him addicted to opioids for years to come. Things really fell apart then — violence, alcoholism, and ... endless anger.

There was a golden moment before all that happened though. Just before my father's accident, they managed to buy a Compaq Deskpro 386, a desktop computer.

With my father out of the picture, and my mother having to get a job, that’s where all my free time ..well, all my time was spent. I had it all, Arkanoid, Lemmings, virtual pinball.

I beat the games, eventually mastered them, and I was upset that there were no more levels to play, puzzles to figure out. I wanted to build my own stages, but the computer was a magic box, so I did what any curious kid would do, I took it apart. There were no lemmings inside the box, no digital pinballs, just a bunch of plastic and metal. No magic at all.