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Editor's note

By Matt Hirschfeld

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Only a few times in my life have I been happily surprised. Usually, after friends and family catch me off guard with what they think of as their best intentions, I become disgruntled and semi-pissed off. Once, though, in my adolescence, my parents threw my brothers and me off guard in the best possible way.

My brothers and I had been playing the NES, the first Nintendo system from circa 1985, for about a decade. We considered ourselves lucky when babysitters, friends and relatives had more advanced systems for us to drool over. Our parents just didn’t get that bigger and better systems had come out. Well, one elementary school spring break, our parents finally got it.

When my parents gathered my brothers and me around the kitchen table, I knew one of two things was about to happen: Either we were about to be punished or we were just about to have another endless “family meeting.”

Once we got settled, I could tell my mom could barely hold in her excitement. She pulled out the solid Toys “R” Us bag and our eyes widened with awe. Then, she unveiled the surprise: a Nintendo 64. My older brother lunged for the present and all of us stared at the box in disbelief. Even though the N64 had come out two years before, by our reaction you’d have thought we got hold of the system on day one.

I can’t remember what games we played that first week, but we played nonstop for the whole spring break.

Check out Kelly’s story on page 8 about older video game systems that are still making a wave in the video game market today, and how maybe I should have held onto that NES for a rainy day.

New and better systems came out and my brothers and I stopped playing the N64. This past week, though, I played a friend’s N64, and I couldn’t help but associate one of my most memorable surprises, a shared surprise, with the vintage video game system.

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