Lessons that "Super Mario Bros." Can Teach Us All

A co-worker has eased my final days in the workforce by pointing me to a site where one can play a whole slew of old Nintendo games online. Though I spent my youth mostly playing the arcade versions and not the home console versions, the graphics on most of them are slightly altered from what I remember. But not my sweet, sweet Super Mario. It is exactly as I remember. If this makes your A and B fingers involuntarily begin twitching, you are probably the same age, and I suspect the same gender, as I.

What amazes me most about rediscovering this game is the degree of detail with which I still remember it. I'm finding hidden 1-Up's and coin boxes that I haven't thought about in 20 to 22 years. Which I suppose goes to show the level of obsession with which I played this game after school at the 7-11. So in fond remembrance, here are the Life Lessons One Can Draw from a Nintendo Classic:

1. Yes, you can memorize it, whatever it is. Repetition is the key to memory. If I can still remember how to skip ahead to level 4, you can memorize that poem. You may have to read it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, but eventually you'll wear a path into your neural pathways that will still be there long after you're no longer capable of remembering the name of the actor in the movie about the guy who did the thing.

2. When the fish are flying, sometimes it's best to just put your B button down, keep movin', and hope for the best.

3. Keep your eyes and your mind open, because you never know when you're going to stumble across that vine into the sky where all the gold coins are floating among the clouds, ripe for the pickin'.

4. Widespread availability of information is a good thing, but there's something to be said for good ol' human interaction. You can Google the locations of all the secrets, but there was a camaradarie in learning about them from the guy standing next to you watching you play, who learned about them by standing next to some other guy watching him play. And bumming his cigarettes.

5. Commercialism is running rampant. I ask you, where today can you find a form of paid entertainment that you can enjoy for hours at a time for a buck or less?

6. OK, I don't really have a 6. Let's face it; 4 and 5 were a little iffy on the whole life lesson concept already. But man, those were some fine times, hanging out at the 7-11 after school with the dope-smoking, cigarette-bumming layabouts and ne'er-do-wells, hoping one of them would call his mom for a ride so they could drop you off, but eventually having to hump it back home for dinner anyway. Ah, good times...

Ha! The co-worker who showed me where to find these old games just came into my office to reminisce about his good ol' days game, something called "Contra." That one wasn't one of mine, but I understood the faraway look in his eye as he talked about the summer of 1987. When I said, "Yeah, it's amazing we still remember all that after twenty years," he stepped back and looked at me in shock. "That wasn't twenty years..." Uh, yeah. It was. 1987 doesn't seem like twenty years gone. Man, we're old. But I still know where that green and yellow mushroom's hidden, so no worries.