I remember playing "Zombie Tag" with my brother, my cousins Dan (dan10878) and Dave ( TheMemoryCrawler) and my childhood friends John and Derek Conrad. It was kind of a mix between"tag" and "hide-and-go-seek". Zombie Tag could only be played at night. One person was "it" at first. Everyone else hid. The person who was it was only allowed to walk because Zombies can't run. (But really they only had to walk when no one was looking). Being "it" really sucked in Zombie Tag since it was dark and everyone else was hiding in a large forest and you could only walk. The people who were hiding were allowed to move around too. They could yell out to the others to notify them that the Zombie was coming.

However, if a Zombie was able to sneak up and "tag" someone, then there were two Zombies. We would play this way until there was only one person left and he/she was the winner. It was a lot easier to catch people when there was more than one Zombie.

I loved those nights, hiding behind a tree . . . Read More..

The Rifle River events were primarily intended as a father/son venture. However, I remember that there was one girl there. She was younger than me and I think her name was Maureen. She was there with her father and brother. I can understand why her father brought her along. I have a daughter and I would want to do the same. I just remember my younger brother Kevin having the "hots" for this girl. They would often play in the river together with their innretubes. I'm not sure if he ever kissed her. He would look forward to seeing her there every summer and I remember him being disappointed on the years when she did not show. Kevin always had his game on with the ladies. I was a little slow to start on that.

I have definitely been reminiscing about Rifle River lately. I remember the scenery. I remember when we started getting close how the road would be less wide and we would be surrounded by tall trees. What I didn't understand then was that this was because we had got off the expressway. The road looked like many roads in Michigan look like and because of this I would never be able to remember how to get there just by the landmarks. I remember that we would . . . Read More..

I remember when I was first really introduced to pop music.  Previously I had liked a song here and there and I owned a Paula Abdul album (Spellbound).  However, I really only listened to jazz and classical.

I think I was in tenth grade.  It must have been 1995.  I remember that Jim Falk introduced me to Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones.  Shortly thereafter, I remember Austin Meoning playing Green Day for me in my room.  And I remember liking what I heard.

I remember running downstairs and informing my parents of the music that I had "discovered".  They smiled and humored me and soon after I started spending my allowances up at Music Master instead of at Video Game Master and The Vault (a comic store).

Back then I used to be able to buy a few albums with my $20/week allowance.  Nowadays that only buys me one album at Best Buy.  I guess I could still download two albums of MP3s for $20 but it just is not the same.

I remember going to the Vault every Thursday and blowing my allowance on comic books.  The Vault was a comic book store that was located in the Waterfall Plaza in Waterford.  It closed down after a few years.  Probably because me and my brother stopped shopping there.

I used to buy all the variations of the X-men and Spiderman comics and Kevin used to buy the Fantastic Four and Punisher comics.  I remember I bought all of the first issues of the Image comic books when they first came out.  Shortly after that, Kevin and I stopped collecting.

They had an extensive back issue selection that I would browse, picking up issues of the "Uncanny X-men" that I did not have.

It's a shame that a lot of small businesses like that can't stay in business.  I still have most of those comic books - some four or five boxes.  I think everyone was collecting at that time so my comics are barely worth more than I paid for them, 15 years later.