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Barbara Falconer Newhall

Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.

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‘Tears of the Kingdom’ Alert: How a 1980s Nintendo Mom Lost Her Cool

May 13, 2023 By Barbara Falconer Newhall Leave a Comment

tears-of-the-kingdom

The Big “Tears of the Kingdom” Release

As the latest Nintendo game, ‘Tears of the Kingdom,” finds its way into Switches all over the country this weekend, a first-generation Nintendo Mom recalls how, in a fit of exasperation, she pulled the plug on the original Legend of Zelda game back in 1989 — to her son’s dismay.

How will twenty-first century moms and dads deal with the lure of “Tears of the Kingdom, which just might be the best Legend of Zelda game ever?

 

Confessions of a Nintendo Mom — The Day I Unplugged My Eight-Year-Old Son

Ten-year-old Peter Newhall with monitor showing Final Fantasy game he has just won. Photo by BF Newhall
April 30,1989. “Like any normal person with a job, two kids and a front yard full of weeds, I had been sleeping in on a Sunday morning – until the sound of Jon and Peter playing the new Nintendo woke me up. I burst in on them. “HEY. YOU WOKE ME UP.” No answer. So enraptured were they with their dratted boomerangs and Oktoroks they didn’t care that they had wrecked my beautiful Sunday morning sleep-in. I stomped back to bed, covered my head and cried.”  Read more.

Filed Under: My Ever-Changing Family

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ON THE FUNNY SIDE

A Midwestern Flower Garden — Beautifully Dead In the Dead of Winter

A snow-covered Midwestern flower garden in winter with dead leaves and twigs from last year's flowers. Photo by Barbara Newhall

I couldn’t wait to head outdoors to see how my favorite flower garden was faring under a half foot of snow and temperatures below zero. Read more.

MORE "ON THE FUNNY SIDE"

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