Blogging Boner has a buddy. He met him about 18 years ago after school at a bowling alley.

He went to Dater Elementary School. Blogging Boner attended Tisdale. Both were getting ready to make the big leap to Eric S. Smith Middle School when their worlds collided. They soon learned they had a lot in common and became fast friends.

The rest … is an eclectic catalog of fuzzy memories.

Today, this buddy sent Blogging Boner a recent article that features his professional exploits.

It’s about damn time.

During your meteoric rise to fame and fortune, don’t forget all the little people along the way who made it possible.

Ahem.

Looking back, Blogging Boner grew up during a very awkward time.

Hairspray and parachute pants were all the rage. Members of Def Leopard were considered Gods. And, apparently, it was OK to blow monster rails of cocaine every day.

Oh, the 80s. A decade in which the vacuum created by the death of disco and the emergence of MTV blinded a nation.

But, Blogging Boner mostly remembers having fun – in the truest sense.

Way back then, there weren’t XBOX 360 and Playstation consoles to keep kids trapped indoors for hours on end. Atari, Nintendo and Genesis were always around and exciting, but none of them ever kept kids from being kids.

Blogging Boner religiously played stickball with his neighborhood pals in the cul-de-sac on Column Court, where Jack Hoppin’s mailbox was the left foul pole and Bruce Caulkin’s streetlight, the right.

Every once in awhile, an “outsider” from across the tracks would be enlisted, literally, to ruffle some feathers. It was like these kids were hired guns, ringers, or mercenaries. To cool off after a long day in the sun, it was basketball in the Marsiglio’s pool or tube races.

At night, it was manhunt or ring-and-run.

These are tremendous memories. Vivid, character-building memories that will never be forgotten no matter how much beer Blogging Boner drinks. So much more meaningful than Bo Jackson rumbling for 10 touchdowns in Tecmo Bowl, or Jeremy Roenick dinking and dunking his way to a double hat trick in NHLPA.

Admittedly, there’s a special place in Blogging Boner’s heart for one-of-a-kind, mind-blowing (at the time) video games like the Legend of Zelda. The gold cartridge says it all. Link, in fact, should be given sole credit for pioneering today’s video game revolution.

A virtual Malcolm X if you will.

Maybe Blogging Boner is being too sentimental, or perhaps his perception is just wildly skewed now that he’s older. But, life back then seemed much more fun.

Make no mistake, kids these days surely have fun – handcuffed to their controllers. A different kind of fun, like it was different for Blogging Boner, his parents, and his parents’ parents.

But, Blogging Boner will never get it.