I spend the bulk of my youth in the South, growing up first in Alabama and them mostly in Mississippi. Sometimes saying that feels like a confession: not necessarily against people in particular, but in reference to how greatly the location of my upbringing clashes with my character and tastes:
I hate humidity and high temperatures.
I don't like or can't eat the majority of southern foods, though I do love N'Orleans style spice and Cajun cuisines. Though it is by no means exclusive to the south, I had enough of racism to last two lifetimes.
I am not a member of a southern band. That at least would be kind of cool.
I lived in the south well over a decade and never developed a southern accent. Ya'll.
I literally grew up in the high school with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. No, not cool. Our school mascot was the Trojan. No relation to the product. Obviously.
Also a mortal sin in the South: I can't drink tea, sweet or otherwise.
There is a feel to the South that I can't really describe to those not familiar with it. There is a haze, in the air and sometimes the mind, that seems to perpetuate far down from the Mason Dixon Line. I made some great friends there, and my beloved was born, raised, and has family there, but I never felt connected to the culture. All throughout middle and high school, all the way through college, I felt on the outside, and not just in a quirky nerd way.
I don't really like the South, and the South never cared for me.
I now live happily north in the snow-belt, about an inch from the buckle where it rubs and pinches at times but is necessary to keep the country's pants from sliding down. My wife was not a southern belle, though she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and she doesn't miss the South either, though she does have happier nostalgia for it than I do. We visit our respective families on occasion, and the disconnect we have with the area fuels much discussion.
This brings us up to this week, where we're traveling through to Jackson, MS for my sister-in-law's wedding. Now I normally love our road trips: my Love and I use Google and the Retro Game Map to hit any retro gaming store within 30 miles of our route, and its trips like these that has given us the bulk of our collection. Its our favorite hobby together, along with local and exotic eateries, and these trips are filled with weird stories and fun memories.
This trip started rough: our kids got sick, and we gave them an extra day before leaving, but we all got terribly sick on the road, and stretched the travel time. We still made it to a few strange stores along the way, including a stop at 'Check Outs' in Columbia, TN. It's the only store I've seen where you can buy a water bed, power saw, paintball gun, cell phone, bookshelves, and a few hundred nintendo games in one purchase. And I'm giving special kudos to Zone 1 in Helena, AL. A top-quality store.
But after we got a hotel in Jackson for a few days, and I got to stretch my legs and do a bit of searching online and locally, nothing came up for classic game stores. Not one, anywhere. And I mean nothing. If you look at the Giant Retro Game Map, there's a 150+ mile circle of nothing for stores, and I can attest that it's not due to stores there and not listed. Phone call after phone call, person after person, no dice.
OK, well, when I grew up we had to travel an hour and a half for the nearest EB, through the swamp, uphill, both ways. Seriously. So, I used to collect by going to pawn shops and flea markets, swapping and trading. Not much for flea markets in march, but plenty of pawn shops and Goodwills. Surely, in the absence of a store to trade these old gems in, they would show up where any grandma could dump them, right?
Nope.
Not a NES Super Mario Bros., not an Atari Asteroids, not even a Genesis sports game. Zone 1 was the last worthwhile find, and it was an oasis in a retro game desert. The biggest cache of classic games in the state seemed to be the twenty or so I picked up on the long road out here. I actually got a bit down.
And I remembered how in my youth, how vigilant I was about searching every haunt I found for any title I did not own, and realized my pride in that early collection (before the Great Entertainment Theft) ten years ago was probably aptly earned. I seriously, no kidding, began to get homesick for the north.
I'll be back home soon, and get to visit my little shopping circle where nifty finds pop up at least every month, if not every two or three weeks. But to all who read this, pop the cork, fill 'er up, and pour one out for our fellow collectors in the South. Not only are they suffering economically (you think you've been hit with the recession, these states down here had it rough long before that hit; imagine it now) but they can't find a decent game store selling anything before PS2 for over a hundred and fifty miles in places.
As an odd footnote, to let you know how backwards the gaming community can be down here, one of the Gamestops I entered (to ask about local classic stores) were bragging about their favorite system, how everyone at the store had one, and I needed one. Their system of choice? The PSP Go. The GO. The overpriced, UMDless, smaller screen, even-Game-Informer-had-an-article-wondering-what-was-the-point PSP Go. Both employees showed me theirs, including all of the software they had installed.
AFTER POKING FUN at my iPhone copy of Plants Versus Zombies.
Pray for these people.
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You don't need to pray for people in the south. Most of them pray enough for all of us. TX was definitely different in many ways from the rest of the southern states i traveled through. Hell TX was different every hundred miles.
They too suffered from lack of gaming stores. Classic or otherwise. I actually did the bulk of my shopping for games at Half Priced Books. There was a local shop in the Flour Bluff/Corpus Christi area i can't remember the name of... PaceCar98(i think his name was) had been there too apparently though. He liked it more than i did. Everything the guy had seemed to have prices jacked through the ceiling. That being said he did have some pretty unique stuff.
I want to know what this classic gaming map is your talking about? iPhone app?
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!?!?!?!?!? Sorry, thought everyone knew.
Google "Giant retro game map," first link. Invaluable for us road-tripping collectors.
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I was born in raised on the east coast (virginia) and when i came down south i admit i hated it. But i can say that i am lucky because in the state of Georgia we have a but load of flea markets with my two favorites being Pendergrass and J& J but they are starting to fall off now. I blame some of this on ebay, especially with the recent sealed copy of Stadium Events being blasted on the frontpage of yahoo. The net has opened the eyes of many and now prices are going up on craigslist and at flea markets because people are trying to make money instead of getting rid of useless "junk" It is realing hurting us and i don't think things will get any better.
We have a few shops that sell classic video games but prices seem to be close to ebay prices, same for certain pawnshops. The one benefit the south does have is year around flea markets, something i did not have back in Va because many didn't want to come out in the cold.
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I've been to some of the flea markets and other massive outdoor sales in Kentucky and I must say, the friggin' pickings are slim. My wife has family down there and I remember getting all excited when I saw the first flea market. I think I spent around three or four hours total, and it was a complete waste. It smelled, I got a lot of strange looks (I'm part Native American), and prices were high for what was basically a lot of beer can robots with penises.
I think part of the problem is the lack of seasons. Up here in Michigan there is a good time and a bad time for thrift stores. Now, during the cold season, it is bad: nothing on the shelves, and a whole lot of people buying, where in the warmer months we have copious amounts of stuff with few people searching. This is in contrast to the area around Gretna, Louisiana, where I saw not one thrift store, but a whole lot of pawn shops.
I agree with you 100%, slakur. Consider them prayed for.
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@ slackur Thanks I was hoping to turn up some new places around me but the 3 places in MA are 30 mins for the close one and over an hour for the other 2. The place in TX i was thinking about is not listed.
@ Moriya Up here we consider Virginia part of the south ![Wink](http://www.rfgeneration.com/forum/Smileys/RFG/wink.gif) When i drove through there with MA plates they sure made me feel like an unwelcome Yankee ;-P
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Ok first off I have lived in Orlando, FL (everybodies probably visted lol) my whole life, I consider myself southern and have grown up in a southern/german family. I cant imagine this snow thing you guys talk about, but the lack of retro game stores even here in a city like orlando is depressing. There really is next to nothing. Oh well guess Ill just go on the front porch a drink some tea..lol
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...I live in Orlando. If you have trouble finding retro games, you're not looking hard enough. Send me a PM - I've got about 15 places I go to.
Sanford Flea Market - there are 5 stores there alone. Play-N-Trade - there are 5 within 20 miles
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