http://fridayfivegroup.multiply.com/journal/item/30/Friday_Five_Prompt_for_June_6_2008_Childhood_Entertainment First of all, I must say that my parents were not loaded with money so we kids created entertainment wherever we could, for the most part. There are a few things that stand out though.
1. Star Wars Figures - I remember after Return of the Jedi came out, having this intense love affair with everything Star Wars. My friend Chris and I would get together on weekends after school and set up scenes with our Star Wars figures. Chris had a few of the harder to find characters. One day we chose to recreate the Sarlac Pit scene from Return of the Jedi. We took a pie plate and cut kind of a star shape in the center..then buried it in the sand. We would set up the sail barge along with the figurines right next to it and stage the epic battle from the movie. It was a blast watching Boba Fett fly through the air and then land in the fake pit...to be fake devoured for 1000 years.
Later in my childhood we got into GI Joes as well. But other than shooting at them with BB guns and blowing them to smithereens with M80s, they weren't quite as fun to me.
2. The Roller Rink - I don't know about you, but I grew up in a rather small town in the panhandle of North Florida. At the time, there was one McDonalds, one Burger King, a DQ (or local equivelent). In a nutshell, there wasn't much to keep a kid busy, although a day at Twin Hills Park could be mildly entertaining.
Mid-childhood, Crestview opened a roller rink on the west side of town. Suddenly that became the kid hangout to be seen at. Not only could you speed skate to hits like, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" and "Feel for You"...but they had an awesome arcade with Donkey Kong Jr, Pac Man and other sweet 8-Bit games. Then there was the Hokey Pokey...you put your left foot in..you put your left foot out...
Back then there was no such thing as rollerblades. Most kids rented these ugly tan skates with dorky orange wheels..while the rich kids had parents to buy them nice professional type skates with sweet polyurethane wheels. These were also the skates of choice by the rink regulars...those older kids who could skate frontwards and backwards at near the speed of sound. To them, skating was a lifestyle...and a form of art.
3. The Commodore 64: I could never talk my parents into buying me an Atari 2600. I think they saw it as just a dumb game machine. However, I was successful in talking my dad into buying me the computer to end all computers one Christmas.
The Commodore 64 was this beige box with a keyboard built into it. You could hook it up to your television via an RF adapter. Most of the early games came out on tape. Yes, cassette tape. I believe the system with a tape drive would run you some $400 at the time. Of course, my parents bought just the computer at first. I would spend hours typing in lines of BASIC code out of the back of C64 magazines, to create primative and boring games or programs. A year or two later, when prices dropped, I got a floppy drive for my C64. The floppy drive was a gift from the Gods. My friends and I would congregate at one of our houses after school and throw copying parties. Soon, I built up a library of over 200 games on floppy. The C64 games were excellent compared to their 8-Bit counterparts. Plus they were hackable.
4. Ninjas - Somewhere, I have a picture of me..about 9 years old..wearing this white ninja outfit..complete with hood. My sister and I used to play ninjas out in the yard and around the neighborhood, using sticks and branches as swords. Somewhere, I think I still have some throwing stars. I never learned to use the nunchucks though.
5. Arcade games - I got hooked on arcade video games at an early age. They were like crack to me. I guess that's why my son is so hooked on console games now. Sigh..they have it so easy these days!
I used to have to ride my bike a half of a mile to the laundry mat to play Star Wars or Donkey Kong.
I also remember stealing change off of my parents dresser a few times... running down to the local convienence store, and blowing it all on Ms. Pac Man. I never did make it to the final scene though. Malls arcades were like Vegas for kids... hundreds of games... so many opportunities.
