The Tourney: A Brief History, part 1

Finally, finally, we have the details in place for the 6th Annual Turkey Tourney. It feels really good.

In case you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, the Turkey Tourney is an annual event that started back in 2004. I was living with my best pal, Ryan Peters or "kid" as we endearingly referred to each other. We had a two bedroom apartment in Lisle, IL with a 19" TV and a Nintendo 64 with a handful of games, the best of them: Mario Kart 64.

We played nearly everyday; after school and work, there was nothing like coming home to "the R&R" and unwinding with a couple of dozen races on the N64. He was always DK and I was always Bowser. Our favorite track, Bowser's Castle, backwards.

Peters dominated. Of the few thousand races we probably played, he easily won 90% of them. But with every loss, the competition became more intense. I'm sure he got more of a kick out of it than I did.

Anyhow, seeing as that we were two of the oldest of our group of friends and pretty much the only to have an apartment, we were the hosts of frequent parties. At said parties, Mario Kart quickly became the standby for entertainment (in between dance parties and impromptu singalongs). One thing led to another and by November, just three short months after the establishment of the R&R, we thought up the idea of the Turkey Tourney.

Everyone would be back from school for Thanksgiving break. No one had work or any other obligations other than eating turkey, hanging out with family and watching football the next day. It made perfect sense. Let's get everyone together and place some Mario Kart!

We drew up some handmade invites, headed to Kinko's to make copies and drove mailbox to mailbox informing our friends of our get together...