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I bought it because it was for COLLEGE guys, of course. I was in junior high at the time, and living out some of the worst years I'd had so far -- ask anyone in education what middle schoolers are like, if you want an earful of that -- and the idea of COLLEGE had great appeal to me. COLLEGE was when you were eighteen, no one could tell you what to do any more, and best of all, you got to go somewhere that WASN'T HERE, a place where no one knew you, a place where things HAPPENED, a place where you didn't have to drive ninety miles to buy a suit of clothes that weren't Western Wear, and where people talked about things other than oil, cattle, and football.
Y'know. Civilization.
And here was this magazine, talking about COLLEGE and what it was like. So I bought it. I HAD to buy it. Because in late '76 and '77, I hated my life, and I hated the place I lived, and I hated my hometown, and wanted nothing more than to go somewhere and start all over in a better place. I came to understand that this isn't far from typical for your basic seventh grader, but I didn't have a lot of perspective yet, y'know?
And I bought the magazine, and there was an article in it... about this thing that college guys did. Apparently, it was a game they played, unlike any other game that had ever been. And it was called "Dungeons and Dragons."
The article was an interesting read. The guys IN the article were unrepentant nerds, but I didn't know that. The GAME looked interesting though -- a sort of swords and sorcery thing that was played on a tabletop with miniature figurines, and didn't seem to have a distinct END, or victory conditions; winning simply meant that your "character" lived another day to have further adventures later.
I didn't know what it was, but it seemed to beat the hell out of Monopoly, and it certainly wasn't football. I began trying to find out more about this Dungeons and Dragons thing. Regrettably, the only sources of information available at the time were newspapers and news magazines, and coverage was spotty; the game wasn't a cultural phenomenon yet, not by far, and it didn't help that I lived WAY out in the boonies in what Robert McCammon referred to as the Great Fried Empty, the south end of the Rio Grande Valley.
But news spread. I ran across a newspaper article, and a short blurb in another magazine. They seemed to line up with what I'd already learned. And, of course, I read that copy of Rolling Stone's College Life to tatters. I honestly don't remember anything else that was in that issue; this weird new game had seized my imagination. I wondered what a "cleric" was. Fighters and wizards and thieves, that I could work out -- I had a working knowledge of "Lord Of The Rings" and the Ace "Conan" paperbacks -- but durned if I could figure out what a Cleric was, and I think it says something about the school system and my distance from any bright light of civilization, that of the three libraries in town (elementary, junior high, and high school), none of them had a dictionary that would EXPLAIN what a Cleric was. Clerks, no sweat, Clerical Work seemed to be what clerks did, and there was a thing called a Clerical Collar, whatever that was, but damned if I could find anything that just explained what a dratted CLERIC was.
I reread Rolling Stone's College Life, and I caught up on my Ace paperbacks with Conan in them. And Thongor the Barbarian; I figured it couldn't hurt. I drew pictures of warriors and dragons in History class, and wondered where one went about getting a copy of this Dungeons and Dragons thing.
And it was that December, finally, that the family took a trip to Laredo. Laredo was the closest major city to where I lived at the time, which ought to tell you something if you look at a map. But there was a mall there, the Mall del Norte, which was the subject of my quest. There were bookstores there...
...and the memory remains with me: seeing a cardboard standup display out front of Spencer Gifts. Stacked in that display were copies of the ancient Holmes Boxed Set, what would be known as the first Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set. Ten bucks. I promptly bought one.
I was disappointed that it contained no dice. It was one of those printed during the interregnum when TSR was having supply problems, and bound into the rules booklet were "Randomizer Chits" that you were supposed to cut out and put in Dixie cups, and draw numbers instead of rolling dice. Disappointment. But the rules themselves... the rules for this game were like nothing I'd ever seen before. I'd been right about my earlier supposition: you created a character -- a fictional character -- a swordsman, a wizard, a dwarf, an elf, a thief, or a hobbit -- and you walked this guy through worlds of adventure, gaining treasure, experience, glory... and possibly an untimely DEATH, meaning you'd have to roll up another character...
I was hooked. I taught a couple of friends how to play, and there was enthusiasm for the game. And the next time we went to the mall in Laredo, I was armed with an entire cashed paycheck from my first job. I can still tell you what I bought with it: A set of dice and a Player's Handbook from B. Dalton's Books, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a Monster Manual from Waldenbooks (they had no Players' Handbooks left), an Atari 2600 video game system at Sears... and I had about enough change left to buy the best Orange Julius I think I have ever had, right there in the main concourse. My old man was quite bent out of shape with me -- "You spent a WHOLE PAYCHECK? NOTHING left to put in the bank? Are you CRAZY?" -- but to this day, I have not even the shadow of a single regret for that glorious day.
My friends and I got started. There were addresses you could send off to for more information in the books -- I became well acquainted with the Dungeon Hobby Shop in Lake Geneva, and did a lot of business with them. I remember visiting Dallas in the summer of 1980, the summer everyone wondered who shot J.R. on "Dallas," and visiting my first real HOBBY SHOP... racks of miniatures, Avalon Hill and SPI wargames, and the White Box D&D sets that I still wish I'd bought, back when they were still cheap enough to afford... but I had the hardbacks, and that's all I thought I needed, back then. Them, and my Holmes Basic.
Through the years of high school, we fought through the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, and through the other giant enclaves, and the Descent into the Depths of the Earth, all the way to the Vault of the Drow and the Demonweb Pits. We visited the Aerie of the Slave Lords, the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and so many others. I was only in high school for four years... like anyone else... but I remember those adventures as well as I remember anything I did in the real world. And I have continued to hold them dear... and to have more... in the years since, up to today.
...to the point where I run the Dungeons and Dragons Club at the school where I work. Won awards for it, even. It's reading, it's writing, it's creative.
To some folks it isn't much, but to me... and to a few others... it's been entire worlds.
Yes, to this day, I can still taste that Orange Julius. It tastes like triumph.
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