Jeffrey C. Long

A few weeks ago, I discovered that my kids dig 80′s music, the music of my youth. So, I set out to make a mix CD for them. I was pleasantly surprised that they were listening to it in the car, and that my eldest daughter stole it from the car. So I’ve made my second mix disc and have started work on mix disc three. When I was in my 20′s and 30′s, I never would have believed that the day would come that my music would be played on the classic rock CD and that my children would want to listen to the music I grew up with.

Back when we lived in Soap Lake, I was shopping in Walmart one day and discovered that they were selling video games that were nothing but a joystick. The video game was built into the joystick instead of in a console. But the cool thing about it was that the games were the arcade games I’d grown up with. We bought the first one which had PacMan, Galaxian, RallyX, DigDug and Bosconian. Then we got the one with Ms. PacMan, Galaga and Pole position. Mind you, these are not replicas of the games. These contain the original software that drove the video games. I never would have believed when I was pumping quarters into these games as a teenager that the day would come that I would hold in my hand two joysticks containing 10 of my favorite arcade games, never to pump a quarter again.

When I first moved to Idaho begin pastoring, I lived alone while my wife sold the house in Soap Lake. Having a lot of time to myself, I subscribed to Dish Network. Among other channels, I discovered the SciFi channel. Very soon Friday became SciFi friday when original episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica were played one after the other. Then monday they played reruns of Stargate. Throughout the week there were movies. As a teen, waiting years for the next Star Wars or Star Trek movie, I never would have believed that the day would come that I would have an entire channel devoted to my favorite movie and television genre: science fiction.

I never would have believed any of these things. What a wonderful world.