Arcade and Beyond!

I was just watching an on-line show that I catch every week, on G4TV.com, called Feedback. http://bit.ly/j9L92F  Please check it out, if you haven't yet. But, back on track, they briefly touched on something that our country is missing- large arcades. I'm not that old- I just popped my third decade on this ever changing rock we call Earth. I grew up in small towns in upstate New York and Connecticut, with family spread out all over the New England area. I was really lucky that my paternal grandparents found this little area in New Hampshire, in a town called Laconia. In this town, there is an actual wooden boardwalk, on one of the largest lakes in that area. They have a motorcycle rally every year- the oldest running rally in the country, beautiful summer weather, water skiing, jet skiing, boating, and water slides. That's not what I wanted to do the most while I was there.

This boardwalk was across the street from where my family resided, so, a two minute walk, and was walking down something that doesn't really exist in this country anymore. On one side, the beach and various water activities- on the other...arcade row. Yes, arcades. One was still named Penny Arcade. I can't properly describe what it sounded like, or felt like, but, I will try, as I feel it's very important.

Imagine walking down a white concrete sidewalk, cars to your right, a giant waterslide to your left, the 10am sun above, about 85, and a few whispy clouds floating overhead. The sidewalk is a slight down angle, and almost forces you to walk at a brisk pace, like the road knows where you need to go. After about 50 feet of walking, you begin to hear strange noise- bells dinging loudly, people laughing and talking, strange slamming of a cloth-covered rubber mallet striking down on a plastic mole figure with the ferocity of a lion ripping into a zebra. You can't help but start to smile. Also, at this point, you begin to get the smells; fresh pizza coming out of the ovens, fried dough getting it's final sprinkles of powdered sugar, and popcorn, fresh and heavily buttered. By this time, you've reached the beginning of the row of open steel, garage style doors, and you peer into this darkly lit room: Games. Tons of games. All shapes and sizes, colors and sounds. The senses are immediately overwhelmed, and there's nothing you can do to stop staring. Your grin is now ear to ear, and you pick your first target, and rush in. You start with a shooting game, the gun ready to be commanded, the aliens just jumping in front of those little electric explosions on the screen. After that, and maybe $2 worth of quarters gone, you rush to the next, hoping that by the end of the day, you've hit them all, even though there are hundreds of different games, big and small.

This is what I miss. Where have these gone? There are a lot of shows on TV now that travel across the country, trying to find the last hidden gems of this country, and trying to expose them to the public, and keep them around. What about us? What about the little kid that ran to the arcade with, quite literally, a pocket full of quarters, and wanted that unending joy of what the day would bring? I met kids like me. I had a great time. I was outside, running around, in a safe area. At lunch, I would grab some pizza, sit out on the beach, maybe take a quick dip, then back to the games 'till the money ran out. This is what the newer generation of gamers won't have. They'll only know the tiny, ten game arcades in the local malls, if that. It's a damn shame.