Please don’t take the following as a complaint about my upbringing, it is not intended to be. I had (have) two loving parents and some awesome brothers, even if they did not want their nerdy, buck-toothed youngest brother hanging out with them. I grew up in a great middle-class house with presents stacked 10 deep under the Christmas tree. My mom cooked for her finicky children as often as she could, and I can remember my dad playing hide and seek with us in the pitch black beach cottage (I was terrified the whole time!). We were about as white-bread as it got in my picturesque New England hometown. Some of the stories I’ve heard about my friends’ upbringing here saddens me deeply, and I realize how blessed I was.
Still, most of my days past 9 years old were spent in fear. Rich Lassen, David Campanaro, and other bullies I can’t even remember haunted me and tormented me daily. After my parents divorced and my oldest brother Tim killed himself near Halloween in the early 80’s (I was 10), things got worse. Apparently he had been my silent protector and I didn’t even know it.
Most of my afternoons after school were spent seeking refuge and attempting to avoid confrontation. I spent them in the library playing games with my (still) best friend Greg. Chess and Stratego first. Then arcade games at the bowling alley and local arcade. Comics at the store 2 towns over we would bike 12 miles to (at 11!). And finally Dungeons and Dragons, the greatest escape of them all.
To be honest, I spent way more time poring over the books and staring at the pictures than I ever did playing the game (that hasn’t changed either). But I built worlds in my mind. Some of them bright and beautiful, with majestic dragons and heroic knights. Others dark and brutal, savage and wild. I had graph papers full of maps…dungeons, towers, cathedrals and keeps. I had other sheets of hand-drawn continents and mythical countries with weird-sounding names. I eventually had hundreds of pages of NPC’s, histories, rules and other esoterica…most of which not another person ever saw and have disappeared in the dozens of moves I’ve had between Connecticut and Tennessee.
For me and the others in my circle, games were a safe place, way less scary than the actual world. They taught us problem solving and math. They taught us to imagine, to write, and to dream. Through games, we made friends we would never have made otherwise. When we played games, all that other stuff just faded away, drowned out by the clacking of the dice and the laughter.
Through a game store, I want to create a place for young people who may also be growing up in fear to hang out with friends and get away from it all for a couple of hours. I want a place for the adults who have fond memories of The Keep on the Borderlands, White Plume Mountain and Against the Giants. I want a place where sportsmanship is the norm and not the exception, where win or lose everyone says Good Game. (Plus, I want to beat the pants off of everyone at Joust.) From grandma to grandson, I want a place for everyone to just be able to stop and take a moment away from the grind of daily life.
For the last 15 years, I thought I would name the store Outcast Games and Hobby. (To be honest, I always thought the idea of having my own store was a fantasy in itself; the thought of actually doing it is a little scary!) A place for the outcasts. And I still want it to be that place, but I want it also to be a bright and hopeful place, not one surrounded by an air of gloom. My heart is no longer that of an 11 year boy running scared down Route 81 in Clinton, CT.
Today, my heart is full; I have an amazing God who has blessed me beyond all measure. I have a family that makes me smile and laugh every single day. I have an awesome wife who I love more each moment, whose strengths more than make up for my weaknesses. I have more friends today than at any point in my life. And I hope to share, even in a small way, that joy.
Above the door to the store I plan on having the verse: “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” If you choose to walk in that’s the only rule.
That’s not the whole story of course; as with everyone, there is a lot of road between there and here, but that’s a little bit of who I am.