As I write this, temperatures in the Kansas City metro area continue to hover below freezing, with traces of snow lingering like an unwelcome dinner guest who failed to bring a bottle of wine to your party.

Throughout the winter months, as snow and ice have pelted the Midwest, it’s been easy to reflect on all we’ve lost these past couple of years. But let’s not forget what our children have lost, too – chief among them, the joy that a snow day off from school would inevitably bring.

You know you remember the feeling well – those evenings in the dead of winter during your childhood when you discussed the next day’s weather forecast with your parents – them, with a sigh of quiet resignation, and you, in a voice heavy with unbridled glee and a dash of hope that maybe, enough snow would fall overnight to keep you home from school.

 The next morning, having barely slept at all due to your rising levels of excitement and anticipation, you threw open your curtains to marvel at the work Mother Nature had done while you lie in your bed. Beautiful snow, blanketing the ground, heavy, wet, glistening, and a gorgeous temporary road block on your path to education.

Oh please, oh please, oh please, you exhale, running downstairs to watch the local news, normally a boring part of your parents’ daily routine but today, your oracle of (hopefully) good fortune. Your mother is already in front of the TV, coffee mug in hand, and you join her, watching the crawl at the bottom of the screen as it lists off area school closures in alphabetical order.

And then you see it – your school!

You squeal with delight, shouting “YEEEESSSSS!” and pumping your small fists in the air. Then, it’s off to your landline phone to call your friends to make plans so your precious snow day isn’t wasted. Maybe you’ll build a snowman or go sledding. Maybe you’ll have a good-natured snowball fight.

Welcome to the January 2022 issue of Discover Vintage America! In this issue, we’ll be covering collectibles for those of a certain age – namely, Generation X, which covers anyone born between 1965 and 1980. Of course, the list of collectibles is lengthy, and it includes video games, those toys that retain a special place in the hearts of Gen Xers like me.

Although video game consoles have been ubiquitous with youth for decades, I’m old enough to remember one of the earlier iterations – the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

By the time the NES was released in 1983 in Japan, video game consoles had saturated the market for a little more than a decade, with the first ones being set up in American homes in the early 1970s. The NES device was released into American test markets in the fall of 1985 and were immensely popular from the start, becoming nothing short of a status symbol for a generation of young players.

I can recall my parents giving me the NES Action Set in the late 1980s for my birthday. The set, which retailed for $150, included the console itself, two game controllers, a ‘zapper’ (a controller resembling a gun), and two games loaded into one cartridge – Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.

I also remember hours of fun playing the game Gyromite, whose entire premise involved a mad scientist character attempting to disarm dynamite in his lab, placed there by his nemesis.

Among my friends and my younger brother’s friends, our house was the place to be. Between stints of playing outside for some much-needed fresh air and exercise, my brother and I hosted friends who would come over and stay for hours in a bid to save the princess in Super Mario Bros.

As I grew older, my interests moved away from video games; my brother, Evan, to this day, remains fiercely loyal to the original Nintendo – so much so, in fact, that on the eve of his wedding in Las Vegas, he and Aaron, his best friend since childhood, played Nintendo in his hotel room. On his last day as a single man, Evan had the entirety of the Las Vegas strip at his fingertips, and all he wanted to do was play Tecmo Bowl with his best friend. It was a touching memory. Though they now have families of their own, these two pals still find time to get together regularly to play their favorite video games from childhood.

The holidays are upon us, and in the hustle and bustle that they inevitably bring, I wanted to make you aware of a few changes to Discover Vintage America’s presence in cyberspace.

The holidays also bring with them an opportunity for rejuvenation and renewal (think of all of those annual resolutions for the new year). We’ve been incredibly thankful all year long for the loyal subscribers, readers, and advertisers who have stuck with us throughout the global uncertainty of the past year, and as the world returns to some semblance of normalcy, what better time to give our website a fresh look than right now?

Discover Vintage America’s publisher, Patti Klinge, has spent the past few months consulting with an experienced web design guru at our local community college to make several noticeable tweaks to our website, all of which we hope will make your experience in browsing our content, both past, and present, infinitely easier and more enjoyable.

First, please note that our URL itself has changed – you now may find us at www.discovervintage.com. When you land on our homepage, you’ll notice that our regular cover feature takes center stage.

Directly above the dominant visual image that accompanies the cover feature is the navigation bar, which breaks up our content into sections: “news,” “shows/events,” “features,” “directory” (which redirects users to The Antiques Finder), “advertise,” and “about us.”Also at the top of the homepage, you’ll find our phone and e-mail contact information, as well as a link that will send you to our Facebook page.

Scroll down, past the cover feature, and you’ll see our regular features categorized by writer. Our team of writers – that’s Anne Gilbert, Peggy Whiteneck, Sandra Starley, and Michelle Staley – each of whom possess a specific area of expertise in the industry and who are kind enough to lend their tips and advice in buying, selling, and pricing antiques, have several decades of combined experience in writing their column for us. I’m constantly in awe of their knowledge and talents.