Visiting with Wargame Ruins

The first thing you should know about my trip to Wargame Ruins is that in a way, the trip is a lot like going home. You see, back twenty or so years ago, I helped launch a game club out in the Utah desert towns of Tooele and Grantsville. The club members were a mix of adults (like myself) and high-school age "kids," including one young fellow by the name of Brent Anderson. Well, time moved on, I moved away, but the old gaming gang is still there, and Brent Anderson has grown up to become the proprietor of Wargame Ruins. (And to think he was once just an AD&D munchkin...)

So the drive to Wargame Ruins is a half-familiar one for me, down not-quite-forgotten highways and past the unchanging "landmarks" of Grantsville, Utah, until I pull up in front of a well-remembered house where I have often met in years past with the old gaming gang.

Brent, who lives in the old family home, has turned the back of the house into his business while leaving the rest for the family.

In the front parlor is a display case containing an aircraft carrier model scratch-built by Brent's father. The model is uniquely built to be representative of WWII aircraft carriers, while not specifically replicating any particular ship.

"Not surprisingly," Brent tells me, "my father inspired my interest in scale models and my love of history."

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