So many memories. I grew up poor, and my nextdoor neighbor and childhood best friend had an Atari and a Nintendo, so I would play his once in a while. I remember Baseball on the NES and and tank game on Atari.

When I was 5 or 6, my grandmother was a school bus matron (back when that was a job and had a pension) and her driver was this younger fellow with a big red beard named Craig. Craig was getting married and moving in the not too-distant future, and his future wife "didn't allow videogames" or some-such, so he gave me his NES, all his games, and his stack of Nintendo Powers.

I inherited all the staples; Mario/Duck Hunt, Mario 2, Zelda, Zelda II, Contra, Castlevania,TMNT, Punch Out, even the unliscened TenGen game etc. Nana wasn't so great at twisting the RF convertor into our 13 inch TV (which sat atop our broken TV  with the built in speakers/cabinet) so I learned how to do that very quickly by myself.

I was OBSESSED with Link and all his adventures, pretending to be in Hyrule when I would play outside. It didn't go untocied, and my mom would ask "Did you have fun with Zelda today?" (not on purpose, she really didn't know) And of course I would get mad and yell "ZELDA's THE GIRL!"

Many, many hours spent with my cousin in Contra (he was a perpetual life stealer) and trying to figure out Metroid's maze-like planet (Thanks Uncle Garry for JUSTIN BAILEY)...

and then Super Mario 3 came out. At this time my mom was engaged and my soon to be step-dad and her went in on a deli in Jersey City. It did, well? They had all the staples, sandwiches and even did catering. Nana would be in the back cooking, my mom was usually upfront and step-dad did management? Anyway - during the summer months they would take me to the store and set up the 13' TV on a small table and a seat and I would play the hell out of SMB 3. I was getting pretty good at gaming, and local kids would come into the store and watch me play and I would teach them the secrets I knew (warp whistles, etc.) - my mom wised up and started to tell them if you want to stay and watch, buy a drink or something.

About a year or two after that I started to get big into RPGs - I liked Final Fantasy, Crystalis, but really fell in love with the Dragon Warriors. My dad picked me up for the weekend and we went to Toys R Us and he bought me Dragon Warrior 2 (maybe it was 3?) and I was so excited. He lived 'upstate' so it was 2hr before I could get ti play it. I had been playing for a few hours that night, when my dad and evil-step mother started arguing. It was loud. Out of nowhere she came into my room, and turned off the NES and ripped the plugs out of the wall/tv. When I was done crying, I learned a life lesson that people can be cruel. Later, I would find out that she was mad I got a present from my dad and she didn't get anything from him that day.

NES probably culminated for me with Dragon Warrior IV, and I remember my dad buying that one for me too. My mom was in the hospital for something, and dad was taking me for another weekend, and I was so exited to show my mom the new game. She started to cry. I didn't understand then, but she was sad because she wanted me to have my dad in my life, and not have him just buy me things and take me once in a while for the weekends when he would show up...which he negged out on a lot of those.

Put many hours into the NES, and became a gamer for life.