The father of a close childhood friend died yesterday.
Stroke, 80+, it happened fast. My friend is affected and I try to support him as good as I can — we live far from each other these days but chat together online almost daily. I lost a parent a long time ago, this is the first parent he has lost.
I met them last summer, I picked up my friend at a family picnic to go play some games. On a happy day.
His sudden death made me think back on how I remember him. He might be the reason that I got deep into roleplaying games and organised play.
My friend got red D&D for Christmas one year. We played after school at his place with his brother and a neighbour friend. They didn’t stick around long, but we found out there was a gaming club in the town we lived. This was before internet but I had picked up a club zine at a local game store. With an address. So my friend’s father offered to drive us there one evening to check it out.
In the excitement I had forgot the paper with the address but I remembered the address or at least I thought I did. When we got there, there was no sign of any gaming club. So we went home again, a 15 minute drive. Then I realised I had swapped the digits of the street number. Instead of 216 it was 126. Kind soul as he was, he got us back in the car and we found the right place. A dirty old flat on the top floor of a house in the back.
We found people to play with. He trusted us to stay there. God bless him. We were like 13.
My friend and I rode our bikes to this club weekly days and nights for the best years of our youth. It opened the doors to “advanced” roleplaying games, board games, and gaming conventions. Thank you Torbjørn. Rest in peace.
