Video games have nearly always been a part of my life. When I look back, video games were present at many seminal moments in my life. This is one of them.

My friends and I used to go to my grandparents' cabin with my father when we were kids. These were your cliched boys' weekends in the woods. We did everything that is expected of a sixth grader in the forest: shot cans with slingshots and pellet guns, chased each other with sticks, canoed to the island in the pond for a campfire, and explored across the bogs in search of adventure. These trips lasted until just before we all went to high school.

In the last few trips, things got slightly more technological. We used the cabin as an excuse to bring video game consoles. On a couple weekends, my father's friend, Harry, would stop in with his computer, capable of running Doom. More hours were spent inside the cabin than out.

Harry was a hero to my friends and I. He was a scuba diver, a pilot, hang glider enthusiast, professional photographer, and many more things. We even heard that he was a strip club aficionado, something that was infinitely cool to young adolescents in the pre-Internet era.

During one of these cabin trips, I had a copy of PC Gamer magazine, which unveiled the announcement of Doom 2.

“You scooped me!” Harry exclaimed, and we all spent months lusting over this new title. Eventually, he gave me a bootleg copy, which I played through countless times (with all the cheat codes of course).

We would talk about Doom, Heretic, and other computer games whenever we could. It was a true generation bridge.

We didn’t hear from Harry for a long time. I figured it was because I grew up and wasn’t at the cabin much, but Dad later admitted that he hadn’t heard from him either.

One day on the local news, we saw Harry being escorted into court on multiple sexual assault charges. He would plead guilty to raping young girls and is, as far as I know, in jail. And good riddance.

I have never wanted to play a Doom game again, and I still move quickly over their listings on Xbox Live. The logo still makes my stomach turn.

The Secret History of Me and My Video Games

Part 1: My Father and the Warp Pipes