This weekend I got a message from Bret. He's the premiere reason that another buddy, Joel, and I were able to run a summer arcade business in my hometown of Sunapee, New Hampshire. Those were the years right after we'd graduated from high school. Bret was recently asked to write up a story for a locally-published magazine. Of course, in 2008, the request was to record the significance of those activities in a historical perspective. By a strange twist of circumstance we have separately all ended up as residents a few hundred miles of each other but near the other ocean. Bret's email was to ask whether Joel or I had any quotes to offer.
I have, on occasion, difficulty remembering what I had for dinner on the previous evening, so I am skeptical about how much I might be able to add to events of thirty years ago. I did a few searches on the Internet to see if I could locate any photos that would help to remind me of Sunapee Harbor in that bygone era. The only pictures, I could dig up were those that I'd contributed to the Internet myself. I modified this picture which Bret had once taken. It was originally in Kodacolor but all but the yellow dye had faded; therefore, I converted it to black and white.
It shows the most important part of what I can recall. The picture does show a young Joel and me. A significant aspect is that another classmate, Sherry Simms seems to be hard at work with maintenance too. She would not have been a paid employee but was among the others who simply wanted to hang out. During those summers of operation, we offered such a place for many of the kids in town too. In those days the school system or town offered fewer programs to occupy youths' time. We were left to our own devices. Luckily, Bret saw the need as a business opportunity. I don't think it was as much about the money as a way to provide a fun atmosphere for not only the three of us. We gave many Sunapee residents, who were under twenty, a reason to come up to the harbor.