Day, the Nineteenth

King of Infinite Space

Today, a strange, small world sort of story.

A friend sent me an email asking me if I knew about Ralph Baer. At the same time, I accidently stumbled upon a Reddit string talking about an odd memory brick in Arms Park in Manchester.

Let me tie the two things together for you.

Ralph was a German-American inventor and engineer credited with founding the modern gaming console, and more importantly, Pong. (I know, I know, there was legal action at the time over the use of the name Pong and Ralph preferred Table Tennis.) But basically, his work, from the company in Nashua that would eventually become BAE Systems, sparked the video game revolution.  

In short, Ralph, who lived in Manchester, was the “Father of Video Games.”

I mention this for two reasons. One, Pong was basically my introduction to digital play back in the dark days of arcades and video gaming. Two, today, Little Bean plays games on a platform called Roblox (if you know, you know) and Pong is to her what a fossil is to an elephant.

So, a little while ago, her and I went to visit the Ralph Baer statue in Arms Park, where Little Bean got a lesson in primitive video gaming. In front of the statue, there’s some of those memory blocks, where you can pay a few bucks and get your name inscribed on the brick.

One of those bricks is nothing buy zeros and ones. Or code. The Reddit string, much to my surprise, deciphered the code and determined it said Muir.

Given the coincidence of reading a story and being asked about it on the same day, I typed Muir into my FB search and discovered not only did a Kelley Muir exist in Manchester but we were friends!

“Yup, that’s me,” Kelley told me. She’s a bank IT programmer and, like myself, had a soft spot for Baer and table tennis.

It’s worth mentioning that Baer is also the inventor of Simon.

Connections, connections.

At any rate, my daughter wasn’t so sure about this Baer guy.

“What’s Pong, daddy,” she asked.

I got down on my knees to get eye level with her and gently put my hands on her shoulders.

“Life, baby,” I whispered. “Pong is life.”