Sunday was a rather significant day in my life.  Not only was it my uncle Roger's 60th birthday party, but it was also probably the last time I'll be setting foot in my aunt & uncle's current house.  While that may not seem all that interesting to most, it's rather monumental to me since they've had that house ever since I joined this mortal coil.

The amount of time I've spent over there in the last 10 years has been somewhat minimal - mostly for holiday gatherings and a wake - but when I was younger, it seemed as if my cousin Kris, my cousin Megan, and I were inseperable.  This was mostly in our early childhood years, but we still got together quite a bit in those late single-digit/early double-digit years.  These years were also known to me as the age of Nintendo - why else do you think I'm putting this here?

In any event, the time flew by while I was there, and after a few alcoholic beverages and a tour of the newly-remodelled upstairs (containing my uncle's old drums from the 60's, a nifty Hammond organ, a Tascam reel-to-reel recorder, and an old-school 16-track mixer), it was time to go.  My cousin Ashley and her kids (my 2nd cousins Ryan, Polly, and Christian) were getting ready to leave just before mom and I were, and uncle Roger asked Ryan if he wanted to take the Nintendo home with him, since they're trying to get rid of as much stuff before they move.

Of course, you know how non-gamers are.  They'll call a PlayStation 2 a Nintendo.  As it was, my uncle forgot to add two little numbers to the end of that question - those numbers being a 6 and a 4, thus nullifying any interest I had in the rest of that conversation.  I ended up wandering outside again for some reason, and by the time I got back inside, Ryan and Polly had made their way by me and out of the house with the N64 in a paper bag.

However, there was a little something sitting in a chair that they had left behind... an NES Max controller.  The same one either my cousin Kris or I had used to play the NES together.  Polly left it behind because she said it was "old-school", and knew it wouldn't work with the N64.  Seeing that my cousin Kris wasn't at my uncle's birthday party for many reasons I'd rather not get into, it wasn't really an issue of him wanting it.  So, it ended up being my lovely parting gift.

Suffice it to say, I got a little quiet and choked up as I was leaving the house.  All those memories and nostalgia just washed over me like a tidalwave.

Though I'll most likely only be able to visit the house again in my memories and with old pictures, I've still got a perfectly-working piece of that house and those memories to show for it.  Long live the NES and its peripherals.