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.

Sometime in the late 1980’s, Nintendo fever hit my block. My next door neighbor had the Nintendo Entertainment System, and I used to go over and play games all day, despite his house smelling like cabbage.

I don’t ever recall asking my father for the NES, but I guess I must have -- I really don’t see how he could have taken it upon himself to get one.

The father of my next door neighbor picked up a console for us in Boston on a business trip. I was totally surprised when he dropped it off. Dad would commonly use this surprise-gift approach: our first dog, my first bass guitar, a trip to Florida. A man of means, he delighted in coming out of the blue with some sort of desirable thing for his children.

Despite having the NES, I would still play most of my games at my friends house. My first distinct memory of playing at home was right after I was shown how to get to the warp pipes in level 1-2 of Super Mario Bros. I immediately had to show my father.

That said, I was very poor at video games. I tried and tried, but couldn’t get on the top row of blocks. Eventually, Dad, completely disinterested to begin with, walked out of the room.

“Show me when you can actually do it,” he said.

Of course, I eventually managed it -- it’s about the easiest trick in the game. But I never did show him.