Promises Kept Part One

Hello again to everyone,

Yesterday, wow it was quite the day, and a lot of it was tied to gaming (in one form or another). So now that it is the next morning, and I have had time to digest it all, let's go through it together!

First, I will give you the background for part one of yesterday. A couple of weeks back (the end of April) I went on an adventure to McHenry, Illinois, to purchase a car load of board games. I had been tracking on almost twenty different Facebook groups how the thrift stores across entire sections of Illinois had received lots of board games from one of the largest board game companies in the world (Mayfair Games).

 Apparently, Mayfair does this each year, and I have seen pictures and read stories of it in the past. This year, I decided I was going to get in on this. After a couple days of discussion with my wife, we decided to go for it. She made the arrangements and I set off on a Friday night leaving Columbus (Hilliard), Ohio, for Merrillville, Indiana. I called it a night about 2 am at a hotel there, with only 100 miles left to McHenry. The next morning after breakfast, I left, and traveled around Chicago, and got to the store about ten minutes after they opened. Their manager and staff were very kind, and I had become a legend of sorts with them. The next hour found me purchasing 67 games, and still leaving them with just as many, if not more. I also had browsed their normal gaming section, and adding 5 more games. I got it all loaded up, took some pictures, called Stephanie to give her an update, and started on my way home (400 miles from the thrift store back to Columbus).

 I got back around 5:30 PM Eastern (mentioning that because I crossed Eastern to Central, and then crossed back on this trip to come home), and started to share my adventure not only with my family, but also on the internet through the same groups where I first found out about this deal. This led to many wonderful people expressing wonder, support, and an overwhelming feeling of "well done", but to my surprise there were several voices expressing how I was a crook, a thief, and going to rob people through this in my reselling. Several online arguments erupted, but in the midst of all this a female spoke up about how lucky I was, and how she had to leave her game collection behind. I asked her to explain further away from all this in private messages, and I came to find out that she had been a victim of domestic abuse and violence. She traveled across the country to get away, fleeing in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind, only to start anew with a new identity.

Once I had enough information I would start preparing a care package for her. She trusted me with her personal information, and I have the resources, means, and know how to send her some games. As I was doing this, out of the blue another game designer (Dave Wilde) contacted me and said he had caught some of the public discussion, and wanted to help by making an inquiry with me if I knew more. Dave and I worked together, and have become fast friends (he is in Louisiana) through this project of helping and caring. Dave sent a care package of his products, and yesterday I finished assembling my care package. I placed within it two games that were part of my treasure haul, Perfectly Posh items from my wife's business stock, and one prototype of Watchmen of Destiny by Lukas Litvaj.

I sent her the tracking information, and spoke with her on the phone, she sounded between happy and crying, and I realize I had put my money where my mouth was, along with Stephanie, Dave, and Lukas. This was the first Promise Kept yesterday....