There was a full moon the night they took to battle.

No, this is not a rant by our favorite lawyer, Jack Thompson, although he would have a field day with this story.  This is a story about what can happen when videogame violence spills over into the real world.

The time was the long, hot summer of 1977 and I was looking for something to do after the cows had been milked.  I called a meeting of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (me and the three other teenage guys down the road) and suggested we go to the video arcade for some fun.

Since I was the only one with a vehicle and a driver’s license, we all piled into my 1972 Chevy LUV (think small import pickup truck).  There were two of us in the cab of the truck and the other two were in the back, bouncing around as we drove down the bumpy country roads.  We stopped at the local burger joint and each got two large burgers with fries and a large soda.  Finally, we arrived at the video arcade with our stomachs full and each wired on sugar and caffeine.  Sea Wolf and Asteroids were just some of the great games we played that day.  We were battling each other head-to-head in a sugar and caffeine induced rage, and continued until our quarters were exhausted.

Weary from battle, we staggered to the truck.  I opened the tailgate and the two youngest guys crawled in.  Slowly and quietly, we drove home back down the old country roads toward the farm.  Instead of dropping my friends off at their respective homes, I altered our destination.  This came as a shock to the guys riding in the truck, because instead of slowing down and turning, I turned the headlights off and veered the truck directly into one of the farm fields at about 30 miles per hour!  Shocked and hanging on for dear life, they screamed at me asking, “What the $%&*# is going on?”

“Detour," I calmly replied.

The moon was full that night so when we finally rolled to a stop in the middle of a field littered with bales of hay, we all expressed a sigh of relief.  I jumped out of the truck and threw forward my seat.  Perplexed the guys demanded to know what was going on.

“Fire fight," is all I said.

“Fire Fight? What is that?”

From behind the seat of my truck, I removed four one inch pipes all about three feet long with one of the ends folded over.  I handed one to each of them, and they looked at me as if I was mad.

I reached back into the truck, and slowly removed an old, worn paper bag.  Carefully, I opened it and removed four dozen bottle rockets and handed a dozen to each of the guys.  Slowly, a grin appeared on each of their faces.

“Bottle Rocket Wars” I told them, and dashed off to take cover behind the nearest bale of hay.  Suddenly, the dark night was shocked to life with a screech and a sudden flash of blinding white light and loud “Bang”.  This scenario would play itself out over the next two hours - dodging and diving, shooting, and laughing as we all spent our ration of rockets.  The fun came to a sudden halt when one of the errant rockets landed on the bale of hay that was in the back of the truck, and ignited.  We all rushed to extinguish the flames after which we all just collapsed in the field laughing and recalling the night's activities.

Did the videogames create this shooting match?  Was it the caffeine?  The sugar?  I doubt it was any of these factors; it was more likely that it was just kids being kids and having fun under the full moon.

                                                    *** Disclaimer***
Kids do not try this at home; this stunt was performed by misguided youth probably before you were born.  Generation: Gamerz in no way sanctions the use of fireworks or any other device to have fun with unless it is in the form of a video game.

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: