My Generation

My generation's attachment to our youth is odd considering our youth was practically yesterday. For as much as we rapidly embrace new technology, iPods, widgets, blogs, GPS, we still clutch onto our childhood toys with white knuckles.

I've read some reports of twentysomethings paying exorbitant sums for pieces of their past. Also, our tech-savvy generation has modified retro gadgetry to embrace new-fangled doodads. I present exhibit A, B and C:








Left: A NES wallet.
Center: A retro-fitted Sony Walkman case for your iPod.
Right: Some sort of computer fashioned out of an NES shell.

My sister, who lives on her own and has embraced capitalism, keeps it vintage with the original NES and Sega systems and our trove of games. The NES still demanded the requisite scientific blowing on game cartridges to coerce them into submission. Unlike today's systems that rarely falter, the old school systems required finesse.

Until recently, the Nintendo was working as it always had, whether or not the game played was left to the Fates. My sister informed me that one night the NES sang its last polytone; displayed its last 8-bit graphic. It shorted out after more than 10 years of (shoddy) service. After some tears, my sis and her boyfriend set out on a quest to replace the irreplaceable. To Disc Replay they ventured. For the low price of $50, a new (old) Nintendo was purchased.

The value of a system seems to be modeling a U-curve. As you'll see on the graph above, the NES debuted, as I recall, with a price tag of about $100 in 1985 [Wikipedia says $200]. It was hip, revolutionary, the future.

Then Sega came out in 1991. Dropping Nintendo's allure and price. With each passing year, new systems would come out that far surpassed the graphics and acoustics causing a Nintendo to be less of a demand. Funcoland -- not much emphasis on "fun" at that establishment -- refused to buy back Nintendos, Segas, [insert system name here]. That place should have been called "We Rob From Children."

But of late, used game retailers are peddling our past again.

We seem to be craving a piece of our youth as we enter adulthood. Call it an early-mid life crisis. Instead of a red convertible that may be out of our income bracket, we gather up our gadgets of yesteryear.

As we decide how much to put into a 401k and discover office politics aren't that different from those in elementary school, we search for pieces of our past.

We're like kids who just had their bottle taken away. We clamor until we get it back, whatever the cost. The difference is that unlike childhood years when a summer's savings from mowing lawns was needed to obtain the desired system, it now takes less than a day's pay.

So raise your sippy cup, which has something stronger than formula, to the days of simplicity and youth.