3 things have happened to me in the last week that have had a magical effect.
1) I got involved in shipping. I used to help out with shipping back at the Dungeon Hobby Shop. I never realized just how potent the smell of card stock and struggling with tape can be in terms of reinvigorating a deep seated "basement" kind of nostalgia.
And many things have been done in this game while in the safety of one's basement. My Uncle Lance was the meter reader in Lake Geneva and came home one day talking about this strange thing he'd seen in one of our town's basements:
There was a table many gray and long haired men were gathered about, seemingly plotting things sinister, with miniature armies. The way he described it generated immediate impressions of "communist cell!"
But being a current reader of Tolkein and L'Engle, which were teaching me kind hearted tolerance and goodness, and while also studying American History in elementary school, to me these men who seemed weird to my Uncle sounded like an interesting and kindly lot, perhaps even akin to our plotting forefathers.
That's ironic, of course, in that they were forefathers of a sort, and they were almost certainly "plotting:"
"2 inches more to the left!"
"Gimmee that ruler!"
"No, they'll flank you if you place them there!"
2) Legion Hall, which was used for Gary-Con right after the services, has long been a source of warm reminiscence for many of us in the Geneva area. Spring Con and Winter Fantasy in Lake Geneva were held there year after year. And those were always kindly little gatherings, which took the place of the early Horticultural Hall Gen Cons, which had since left town.
Not only great for its war gaming pasts, the Legion Hall honors the fallen, having pictures of veterans and past campaigners from years of America's perseverance. But more than anything, for me, it has that time worn smell of a well used but tidy barracks - the same kind of smell that impregnates old WWII gear in a military museum (or in boot camp when they teach you how to don the Mark V gas masks they still use from that same war). That smell is vaguely like a hardened sweat and dusty grit. It represents a familiar and hard fought freedom to many of us.
Now, we may not often think it so, but war gaming and role playing are distinctly part of that smell of freedom. That there Taliban, they aren't role playing - though we might wish they were, or subtly imagine they're faking it.
3) AND, specifically due to Gary's passing: recast within me is this sharp consciousness and connection to this entire idea of gaming on.
Gaming on neither in spite of 3rd and 4th editions, nor standing upon previous foundations, but as an act of life-giving joy. Just as Gary would have wanted it.
In all honesty, I didn't think I would shed any tears for Gary. He didn't want that kind of thing anyway. But when I did, I realized it wasn't just for Gary. It was for Gary and every one of us selfish souls who insists on playing while we can, because we can.
It happened when I was all alone in Legion Hall for a few moments. I could hear all the folks upstairs laughing and dice rolling, echoing off the white walls around me. I stood still and silent and just listened. A crazy little self-aware grin formed across my face, as I realized, "WOW, this is it!" This is the point of it all. This is no simulation. It's all quite real.
That's when the tears came. But they were the good kind of tears, of joy and solace.
I stood there continuing to listen to those echoes from above, grasping that solace, in that hallowed hall above... What a luxury to be alive and aware in a moment like that! Though only a few moments, it felt lasting and certain.
A noise on the stair, and I suddenly found I was actually standing in the Men's restroom, with tears streaming down and a silly smile, and here was someone coming in to take a leak!
Ahhhhh, the normal and daily sensation of the passing of life. But something else now, too.
Those dice can be heard rolling upstairs, and with them there is this new laughter in my heart, exactly made of our youth.
I thank anyone who has ever gamed for their continuance, and for their joy. Let it never be forgotten that what we do has in its purpose the purpose of life, happiness and the pursuit of really great goodies!
Thanks for listening.
