| I Know Why I Packrat

Maybe I always knew, but I think I figured out a big part of why I packrat games.  If I look on my shelves and I pick any game off the shelf, I remember a lot of personal history around that game.  Some of this stuff I would never remember or think about without some sort of cue, and all the shit in my office is that very cue.

Mostly this has to do with RPGs, and the more I have this a-ha I realize there were also some games that I've sold that I wish I kept just for the memory jog (I'm really only thinking about Assault on Hoth, because I think Jordan and Yukari played it against each other in my Pine room way back when and that's a nice memory to have given where they ended up :) ).

For example, "Recon".  This is some shitty Vietnam RPG by Palladium that is poorly laid out, has worse copy, unclear rules, terrible art, etc. - truly an RPG representative of the boom in the 80's.  I don't think I ever actually played it, but what I do remember is I bought it from Galaxy Comics on Aviation, I also bought my first complete set of clear blue 'crystal' dice in the tube with the orange cap at the same time.  Thinking about Galaxy reminds me of what the store looked like, how I ogled all the comics on the walls, what an adventure it was for me to track down all the Punisher appearances I collected when I was younger, and that I was living in my grandmothers house on the Strand in Hermosa while our other house was being built.

All of these little triggers remind me of so much more from my past that I feel like I would really be losing some of myself if I let too many of them go.  I might lose that one cue that is tied to a whole thread of memories I might never get to enjoy or experience if I sell or get rid of that certain game.  I think I've instinctively known this and have been reluctant to get rid my sheet for this very reason.

Anyway, who's to say there isn't another, less junky way, to remember this stuff, and maybe it's not that crucial for me to remember in the first place - maybe I should be filling my brain with new and important things but there's no room because I have too much of the archive filled with the layout of Galaxy Comics (which I just remembered had a Mighty Mouse on it's business card).

For better or for worse, that's why I have so much shit.