A few weeks ago I posted some inaniloquent musings about things I miss (mostly from my childhood in the 80s), and my Generation X nostalgia crept in again this morning with flashbacks of everything "80s" like television shows, games, friends, playing outside, nukes, and of course our Atari system.
Growing up as an Xer during the Cold War was such an anxious time (at least for me) because the threat of nuclear annihilation lingered constantly in the back of the mind, like that musty smell in an attic that no amount of mothballs can shake (I honestly prefer the musty smell to the mothball smell). I remember riding my bike one evening and the sky looked strange, purple and dark grey, and I thought, "Oh, know, the bomb has been released and I'm going to die."
Doom and gloom were always a part of me, so when Atari came along, and my parents decided to buy the system for us, it was something new and wildly exciting that took my mind off exploding into a million radiated bits.
My parents (like many at that time) were worried that we would no longer want to play outside and that we Gen Xers would become zombies, addicted to this new fangled machine with it's hideous graphics (I'll be honest, we didn't find those graphics hideous at the time because we had nothing to compare them to, except Pong, and hands down, Atari graphics were much better), replete with sound effects.
It turns out, parents of Generation X didn't need to worry about coercing us into video gaming rehab or forcing us to go outside and get some fresh air. We wanted to be outdoors. Sure, trying to figure out the new Raiders of the Lost Ark game or improve our Missile Command skills was fun stuff, but after a while, the outside world called our names, boredom with the Atari system would set in and we would be jonesing (now there is a lost but not forgotten 80s term for you) to get outside and pass the football around, or build a tree house, or dig in the dirt.
Being in the outdoors seemed less scary after playing indoors with the Atari, though I'm not sure why. The foreboding war still loomed in the background as before, but perhaps my desire to "live" or my bravery intensified after experiencing being shot at by space creatures, dodging barrels hurled at me by Donkey Kong, or swinging over a pit in the jungle to escape deadly scorpions? Game Over.
--Fortuitous Observer
