We loved the Akron, Ohio library system. It was awesome. The branch library near us had a small parking lot. I would park our tan fullsize van and bring everyone in, a group of four little ones, eventually five. They had music on cassettes and CDs, lots and lots of books, especially children’s books, and a section of computer software in neon orange cloth bags. We set up the desktop computer in our fourth bedroom, and installed lots of things from the library. We especially enjoyed The Magic Schoolbus games, educational titles from Edmark: Thinking Things 2 and 3, Millie’s Math House, Sammy’s Science House, and several from The Learning Company, including a math game called Operation Nemo. We played three of the early Mathblaster games. From The Search for Spot came the family phrase, “Woik, woik, woik! you make me do all the woik around here!”, and from The Lost City, “Blasternaut, if we knew where it was, it wouldn’t be lost!”

We tried all the Lego games available at the time: Lego Island 1 and 2, Lego Island Extreme Stunts, Lego Rock Raiders, Lego Alpha Team, Lego Racers 1 and 2, Lego Loco. Some of the games would still play after we returned the disks. My husband had checked out Lego Racers 1 on his library card; I didn’t know to return it, so we didn’t until shortly before we moved. We ended up paying for Operation Nemo, because the disk fell into a back corner somewhere. When later we let them know we had found it, they asked for it back. I kept it; we had paid for it, after all.

My older children loved these games but eventually we moved/grew older/replaced the computer. My younger children were interested, so when we found these games available at Walmart, we bought them. One that I particularly liked, that we never acquired again, was Grammar for the Real World. I still miss it sometimes. It had hilarious editing tasks to do, a clueless news reporter whose words you had to change, and a basic animation and text-to-voice program as a reward for completing a level. I made a short film of people being arrested on an alien planet because (robotic voice) “You have contaminated our ketchup with wahhh-ter!” I pictured puddles and oceans of ketchup.