| The first game of paintball was played in June,
1981, near Henniker, New Hampshire. Following, from The New, Official
Survival Game Manual, by Lionel Atwill (National Survival Game, Inc.,
1987), is a taste of that game, and a look at the three men whose genius
created a sport played worldwide today. If you find a copy of this book,
treasure it, because its hard to find. Note that the equipment
(particularly the goggles) shown in the photos in the book is not
considered safe for use in the sport today.
Charles Gaines, Hayes Noel, and Bob Gurnsey get the credit for
inventing paintball. The books introduction, by Gaines, talks about how
the game was invented:
"One night during the spring of 1976 or 1977, Hayes Noel and I
were grilling a king mackerel and drinking gills and tonic on the patio of
a house in Jupiter Island, Florida. While we were grilling and drinking we
talked, as we often do, about play. We both believe in play. Specifically,
in this ginny conversation, we began to construct from an idea of Hayes's
a form of play that might contain the childhood exhilaration of stalking
and being stalked, might call on a hodgepodge of instincts and skills and
might allow as wide a variety of responses as possible to this rich old
question: How do I get from where I am now to where I want to be?
"Well, the Survival Game was conceived in utero that
night---conceived as a lark, as something that was fun to think about.
Somehow we kept thinking about it, discussing it, always in the context of
other forms of fun, in New York City, on Martha's Vineyard, in a duck
blind off the New Hampshire coast with Richie White and Carl Sandquist,
and in dozens of places with Bob Gurnsey...."
Another gentleman, George Butler, located the Nel-Spot paint marker in
a forestry equipment catalog. These markers were used to mark trees and
cattle. One thing led to another, and another, and The Survival Game was
born.
Gaines commented about the games rapid growth: "All of it
happened, I believe, because the Survival Game extends itself naturally
into a number of universally interesting metaphors. Playing the Game can
actually show you in its own terms who you are, and there is no more
interesting metaphor than that. The Game can also be seen as a metaphor
for the efficacy of teamwork, for universal cause and effect and for the
manner in which consequences evolve from sequential decisions. And some
people will even tell you that it is a sure and ugly metaphor for war. We
don't believe that is so, but I am not out to argue the point here.
"The Game may be interesting because of these various metaphorical
extensions, but it is not fun because of them; it is fun simply because it
is fun. Conceived as a lark, it is a lark to play--an intricate, demanding
and thrilling child's play which, like all the best games, can never be
played perfectly. Play like that for adults is always in short supply.
With this book you can have fun reading about the Survival Game. Then you
can have the great good fun of going out and playing it."
|
