"Dark Shadows" From Childhood

Few things are as elusive as childhood memories. Are we really remembering things exactly as they happened? Or have those memories distorted to a point where they become more like fiction than the reality they are supposed to represent?

Take me, for instance. Some of my memories are crystal clear. Such as those around the glow-in-the-dark Aurora monster models my older brother had. Each night, these models had to be covered with handkerchiefs and hand towels because all I could see in the darkness was floating heads and clutching hands. No way I could sleep under those conditions.

 

                                

 

Or what about “Famous Monsters Speak”? The cover of that LP was burned in my memory so deeply that when I finally ran a Google search late last year and found it again, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my memory had been accurate in its recollection.

 

 

But there was another memory that was much more misty. It was of a board game. And all I could recall was the distinct imagery: a bloody hand reaching up from murky waters; spaces marked with knives and bats; a vulture perched on a tree.

 

 
Using the Internet, I began searching board game nostalgia sites. I relived a lot of other childhood memories during my searches (seeing “Which Witch” again was especially fun). But I could not find the game I remembered. When my search proved fruitless, I took to writing the owners of these Web sites, describing what few details I could recall.

Someone finally suggested that I was thinking of a “Dark Shadows” game, based on the TV series which is now being remade into a feature film by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. That rang a bell with me, but when I searched for a “Dark Shadows” board game, I only found something that involved collecting skeleton pieces. And then, at last, I found what I was looking for. It was indeed a game called “Dark Shadows” (the other was actually called “Barnabas Collins”).

I quickly found a copy to buy on eBay and I am pleased to say it was everything that I remembered. And more. Since then, my family (my wife and three children, aged 14, 11, and 8) have played “Dark Shadows” too many times to count. It’s a welcome respite from the onslaught of videogames based on movies and TV shows to sit with the family and make some more childhood memories.

But know this: if you plan on following in my footsteps,  you better hurry. I suspect that once Johnny Depp steps on screen as Barnabas Collins, all things “Dark Shadows” will suddenly become real “collector’s items.”