I'm sitting here in a very reflective mood tonite. I'm thinking of a time back in grade 10 when, during every single lunch, it was all about Car Wars. Car Wars was a game produced by Steve Jackson Games (www.sjgames.com) in the early 1980's. It was a game played with paper terrain with buildings and obsticles drawn about it. Cars were marked with little 3x2 tokens, and moving the car and controlling it's weapons were all done using a set of dice and a guide book.
Most of the terms have fled my mind... But my HogRunner and that rogue Wanda Detroit... Oh, and Gordon with his ground-pounding van... And Oscar with his fearless (and mindless) driving skills. Ohhhh the good ol' days.
Oscar was a target for us all. Gordon especially used to like wasting all of his 15(?) rockets on him in one shot... oh the brutal humanity...
I remember a time Oscar once left his vehicle because two of it's tires were blown out. (His weapons were still functional and the car could still go... it's just that it didn't drive very straight..) anyway, he left his vehicle on foot. I was gunning for his car cuz my car was crippled. I got out with my trusty hand gun, took care of Oscar, and hopped in his car. This is when the bell rang and it was time to leave. It was the last partial game of Car Wars we ever played.
I'm trying to get in contact with Dez to try to set something up, but I haven't been able to find him as of yet... hopefully my luck changes.
As I reflect on my past, I also reflect on my time spent on my street.
Growing up there were three families on the block here that lived fairly close. All kids were (approximately) the same age. In one household lived Krystle, Chaundra, and Patrick. In the second house lived Sean, and then the third house was me. We all grew up together. Sean and I were buddies from the time that we could both walk. I remember settling our differences with eachother through rather rough fist-fights. I knocked one of his teeth out - I admit it.. but he had it coming. Anyway, we were the type of kids who, after a fight, would go out and play afterwards.
We would start our bikes a few hundred feet apart and play chicken. We'd gun towards eachother at full speed, knowing full well that the other person wasn't gonna turn. Ohhhh I remember scraping my knee up pretty bad and gettin' my head banged around whenever we did that..
Another classic game of ours was "see how close we could come to Tony's garage door without hitting it." The idea of the game was to speed our bikes and get 'em goin' as fast as we could, and speed towards Tony's (our mutual neighbour - he lived between us) garage door, then slam on the breaks and do a 180 on our bikes... If you ever had pedal breaks, u know exactly the kind of stops I'm talking about.
Sean and I would always play with Patrick (the younger of the three kids) next door. Patrick was younger than us by about 5 years, but that didn't matter. He was a cool kid. We'd constantly play soccer and hockey.. and laugh when we would see him fight (and lose) with his older sisters.. Chaundra being 3 years or so older than him, Krystle being 6 years (give or take).
Anyway, they all used to be good times.. Since then Krystle, Chaundra, and Patrick have all moved away. I haven't talked to them for years. So if any of you know a Krystle, Chaundra, or Patrick White, then give me a shout hmm? I'd really like to get in touch with them. I've been trying for the last couple years to find them online, but my efforts have come without a payoff.
Geeze.. what would I say to them?
I dont know, but I'm convinced that our paths will cross again.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 ::
10:40:00 PM
