Three dominant memories stand out from my adolescence. They are my bar mitzvah, my first makeout and playing NFL Blitz on Nintendo 64. They are in no particular order.

So you can imagine my delight when I was greeted upon my return from Thanksgiving break by that not-so-shiny gray cartridge in my buddy’s N64. The bright yellow capital letters were a little faded, but it’s not what’s on the outside that counts.  

It’s been years since I last saw Steve Young lined up behind center, but it didn’t take long to recapture the old magic. Double Z to spin and B to jump. Three sacks in a row, and you’re on fire.   

It was Christmas come early for anyone who wouldn’t mind being 13 years old again. The slumber party Blitz tournaments that were the staple of my middle school years came flooding back to life, as real as the job inquiry e-mails I’ve been sending of late.

It’s a wonderful medicine getting lost in the 20th century, as my friends turn 22, and relatives no longer ask about plans for classes, but for life. It’s as scary as punting to Devin Hester to think about one semester left in college.

But there was Blitz all this week, exactly the same as I’d remembered it, comforting me one late hit at a time.

It was subzero and da bomb on offense, safe cover and the near zone on defense. Two–minute quarters interrupted by the hottest computer–generated cheerleaders of all time, cheerleaders that once played a crucial role in bridging the gap from boy to man.

That was a time when you thought Tim Biakabutuka would be a mainstay in the Carolina Panther backfield for years to come. It was innocent in a lot of ways, I guess.

Blitz is everything youth is supposed to be. It’s simple, easy, but perhaps most importantly, it’s fair. Down three touchdowns, you know a fumble is coming to keep you in the game. Real life guarantees no such breaks.

One game of Blitz takes about twenty minutes — a blink of an eye, really. It’s like homemade chicken soup to get lost in a world where penalties don’t exist, and it’s impossible to run the clock out with a lead in the second half.

But just when you get comfortable, a few snaps later it’s all over — yanked back to Pleasant Street, sitting in a friend’s house that will be empty in just six months.

Not even a ’roided up Bill Romanowski can stop the passage of time. He can only hope to contain  it.

Me, too.