The God in the Gatorade

So on my way home from playing frisbee last week I stopped at the Shell station to fill up.  Which is a scary proposition as we all know and makes me glad I'm driving a miniature Acura rather than any of the behemoths I see round about.  But anyway.  So as I'm standing there pumping the gas, I'm thinking the whole time, man I should really go inside there and get a Gatorade.  I'm tired and sweaty, and a nice cold Gatorade would be just the thing.

But then the better angel of my nature pops up onto my shoulder and says, no Mark, two dollars is a lot of money for a drink when you could just drink down a gallon of water at your house ten minutes from now, just hang on a second.  So I finish pumping the gas having resolved this earthshaking moral dilemma.  Suddenly, no lie, a voice starts talking to me.  Well, a recorded voice anyway.  It was an advertisement cued up to play whenever someone is done pumping their gas:

Now that you've filled up your car's tank, fill up your own!  Come inside, and try a refreshing Gatorade right away!  Only 1.99.

Now I'm not superstitious, but I don't tempt the fates either - and this is creepy - so off I go to obey the will of the Gatorade.  The bell on the door to the shop is ringing a moment later.  Grabbing a red Gatorade from the shelf in the back of the store (and a bag of Ruffles to replace the ones I had just stolen from my roommate) I head to the checkout.  And behind the checkout is what is obviously a nice guy having a bad night.  It's kinda stormy, and he's stuck working alone in a service station on Monticello at like nine in the evening.  Life kinda sucks.  I throw down my stuff, and he instantly perks up, greeting me warmly and with a suggestion: Oh, did you know that if you buy the other brand, the Powerade, right above this, it's only 99c?

Well, yes, I did.  But...

A few seconds later he and I are sharing a laugh at... me.  He rings it up, and I'm off, but then a prodding from the Spirit.  I'm Presbyterian by nature, and most of the time the Spirit leaves us be.  But tonight is weird that way.  By the way, you know you're probably the best service station attendant I've ever run into.  You were pleasant even though you obviously weren't in the mood, and you were a servant in taking the time to point out a deal you had no need to do.  Well done!

Taking five seconds to encourage this guy obviously served to brighten, even heal his night, and to remind me that God cares about the tiniest things.  In one fell swoop, He gave out His Gatorade and His kindness to us.

Currently Reading Killing Rommel By Steven Pressfield see related

New blog

I really need to do a better job separating out my personal life from my job.  One of the big challenges of freelancing like this.  One tangible way that is happening is that I'll no longer be talking much about work on here, that stuff will happen in a new place: www.mapologist.blogspot.com

So if you care to hear about my mapmaking adventures, that's the place to go, and Xanga here will be undiluted personal stuff henceforth...

Currently Reading Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance By Donald Miller see related

Phone number change

Hi all, here's my new phone number: 803.741.5540

Currently Watching Band of Brothers By Damien Lewis, Ron Livingston, Donnie Wahlberg, Frank John Hughes, Neal McDonough see related

Cocreating

I don't remember exactly when Bobby Ward, the kid down the street, introduced my brother and I to Francis Tresham's Civilization, but I caught the boardgaming bug that day and never looked back. By the age of fourteen I had published my first article (a rather presumptuous piece on opening strategies for Civilization) in the Avalon Hill in-house magazine, The General. We'd founded MGC, The Mahaffey Game Company, which failed to produce a single finished game - but saw myriad ideas and components built and thousands of cardboard chits and counters scattered through salvaged post-office paper- boxes in our closet. Our pastor’s son Rob was our only customer, and we his. We faithfully exchanged catalogs of each other’s works, modeled after those gorgeous Avalon Hill flyers, pregnant with possibilities.

There was only one game company in my eyes in those days - Avalon Hill - and I adored it. To this day The General is the only periodical to which I've been a paying subscriber. I purchased or dreamed of purchasing dozens of games. I hauled copies of Mark Herman's Peloponnesian War to show-and-tell to no avail, and spent endless evenings ogling maps and articles. By high school I was bringing Stonewall Jackson's Way to our American Civil War Studies class for everyone to play.

I had an image of what Avalon Hill was. The sacred address at 4517 Hanford Road in Baltimore housed a creative think-tank, a buzzing studio where those great designers and artists gathered together to revel in the joys of collective craftsmanship, days and weeks spent co-creating…

So on a family trip to Washington way back when, I pleaded with my parents to make the 45-minute detour to Baltimore, and giddily anticipated a walk into those hallowed halls. When they acquiesced, what I found was a sparse front-office desk and little else. I suppose this sounds a little silly, but it was one of the disappointments of my life.

I know of nothing I can do anything like creating games save creating films. These are arts that require collaboration and creativity in deep measure. And both industries are strange combinations of plain old commercialism and shocking volunteerism.

To this day I long to work in that kind of environment, where like-minded people come together in a room to create. What greater joy is there? Maybe one day the naïve image I had in my head will be a reality again.

Come 1998, Avalon Hill was sucked up, digested, and excreted from the corporate monstrosity of Hasbro, and an era ended. I’m not bitter, ten years later…

But if you had told me then I would one day be colleagues with some of the colossuses of my childhood, familiar names like Mark Simonitch and Richard Berg, Charlie Kibler and Ed Beach - I would have laughed you out of the room. What a privilege it's been so far.

Currently Reading Beyond Smells & Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy By Mark Galli see related

Movement

So I've been pleased to see a bit of resurgence of activity here on Xanga.  Yay for the written word over the overload of Facebook and the horror that is Myspace. 

Finishing up preparations for a move across town here.  Was helping paint my room the other night, and I've realized with some degree of astounded-ness that at the age of 26 I will, for the first time in my life, have my own room.  Weird.

Well, I'm off to take a mapmaking break (from a rather interesting southern polar projection game map) and run around outside with a frisbee in 98-degree heat.  Yay!

Also, check out this cool six-minute long shot opening Branagh's new production of Mozart's The Magic Flute:

Currently Reading Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives) By Bill Bryson see related