The Best Gift Ever

It’s my birthday today.   Not a huge deal.

However, 25 years ago my grandparents gave me the best gift I ever received in my life:  the D&D Red Box.

Over the years, my grandmother has said that she wished she hadn’t gotten me that game, believing the myths that D&D was ‘evil’.  However, I’ve told her simply that almost all of my closest friends I met directly because of D&D.

It started with the lunchtime games in Grade 7, which solidified my friendships in my last year of elementary school.

In my senior years of high school I played D&D with several people who would end up being some of my closest friends.

When I entered college, I met several more friends at the D&D club and ended up not only running my own game, but playing in two others.  Those were the days.  Did you ever wonder if it’s possible to jump 10 feet from a standing position?  One of us proved it…by putting his feet through the portable wall.  Oops.

One of those new friends was instrumental in getting me to choose to go to Montreal for my Master’s degree.  There, I joined another group and had a blast.  I still remember playing D&D in the Laurentians during a snowstorm.

When I moved to Seattle, my D&D gaming had some fits and starts, but when I moved back home to Kamloops, I started up my D&D game.  Again, I met several new friends (and their wives, who became friends with my wife).

The bottom line is that most of my friends since elementary school I can say I met directly through playing D&D. So today I raise a virtual toast to all my friends past and present:

Grade 7:  Jim, Mike, Russell, Tony, Ted and Ray

High school:  Kim, Ed, Randy, Lorne and Max

College:  Melvin, Russell, Kim, Trevor, Dan, Dave, Ed and Randy

Montreal:  Tyler, Cara, Eddie, Shawn and Howard

Now:  Ed, Randy, Melvin, Scott, Dale and Darrell

And to my grandparents, you thought you were just giving me a game.  What you actually gave me was something much better.

Friends.

Thanks Grandma and Papa.