Faded photographs

Doyce is a silly, sentimental fool. But he’s my kind of silly sentimental fool. It’s hard to believe it’s been five years (it’s one of those “[only] that long?” kind of things).

Of course, it’s all Randy‘s fault.

Margie and I had been trying to get involved in more local gaming. I had an Amber campaign going, but our attempts to get involved with other local gamers (generally through ads at the local game shops) had been, generally, pretty miserable favors. There are a lot of flaky gamers out there.

Randy had long been waxing lyrical (as lyrical as Randy ever gets) about some game he was playing under some guy with the improbable name of Doyce.

The next bit is a little hazy in my mind. I recall (though I think this has been previously disputed) that I got Doyce’s name off of yet another game shop solicitation (“For a good time, call …”), and he then set up an appointment over at our house for an “interview” — which seemed odd, but, in retrospect (and given our parallel experiences at the time with flaky gamers) made perfect sense.

So, I sort of have this pre-image, both from the name and from the Typical Gamer Stereotype, of this sort of soft, pudgy guy with glasses. Instead, out pops from this pickup truck this tall, muscular fellow with a buzz cut and stylish mirrored sunglasses. I’d have been intimidated if I weren’t — well, okay, I was a bit intimidated, but invited him into the house anyway. At least he didn’t have his infamous baseball bat at the time.

And the rest is, as Doyce puts it, history.

And through Doyce and Jackie we’ve met Rey and Juli, and Dave and Lori, and Robert and Lori, and, in essense, about 90% of the friends we hang with here in Colorado. (And, of course, Justin. And Tristan.)

And that’s about as sloppy and gooshy as I’m gonna get on these pages.

So … well, here’s to the next five years. Ya big, sentimental lug.