Listen to the Companion Podcast Here.
I had a great Gary Con 14 in 2022. The con ended yesterday and I got home last night.
My Gary Con recap will be in the next episode.
For now, I am being laser focused on a place that is at the heart of the Roleplaying hobby’s birth as a commercial venture that was original Dungeons & Dragons.
Gary Gygax was a prolific reader, gamer, and writer of war game rules. He was a father of five living in a small house when he typed up rules inspired by the vision of how Dave Arneson developed a fantasy Braunstein from what Dave Wesley did as a game where the players were individuals on the map of a fictional town that would be the center of a battle set in the Napoleonic era.
The current owner of the house where Gary Gygax wrote original D&D, Yolanda Frontenay and her husband, have discovered that the two large trees on the property are affecting the plumbing and the limbs overhanging the house are a hazard.
The house is also 100 years old and needs a new roof and many other things repaired so that this landmark can endure long into the future.
The immediate need is for taking out the trees.
I first met Yolanda back in September, 2019 when I was part of an Extra Life event organized by John Gilbert. We had the first 4 streamed games from Gary’s old house. I played in 3 of those games and ran one.
There were initial plans to do it again in 2020, but Covid changed everyone’s plans.
I learned of the Indigogo campaign a few days before Gary Con and shared it on social media.
When I was at Gary Con, I saw Yolanda outside the vendor area. She told me of the challenges of the trees. All the bids she has gotten seem high to me. I had to huge maples taken out of my yard and with nearby power lines they had to use a crane. The low end quotes she has are close to double what I have.
I just can’t believe it needs to cost that much.
I met her at the house on Saturday to pick up a shirt that is another fundraiser for the house. The trees are much smaller, that is shorter, than my trees. One tree is close enough to one street that it shouldn’t be that hard to take out. They may still use a crane, but it’s not that big.
The other tree is between Gary’s house, the neighboring house she also owns and rents out like an AirBnb, and a neighboring house. It is about equidistant from both streets, since Gary’s house is on the corner. It definitely needs a crane. It is further from both streets than the other tree and bigger than the other tree in both height and diameter. It is still shorter than the two trees I had removed.
So I’m making an appeal. I’m hoping to help raise funds by getting the word out.
If you can’t donate money, please share the link to my podcast and the Indigogo campaign to get the word out.
I had a couple of thoughts on how we can use the collective of gamers to source a solution.
Other than the obvious of raising a whole lot of money, we can see if we can identify a tree service who has a fair price and not gouge. The other idea is if there is a gamer out there with a tree service that can either give a huge discount or help connect to a tree service with a lower quote.
Other than those ideas, we need a lot of small donations, or perhaps someone with a lot of money who’d be happy to help.
Please keep this in mind and maybe we can get word to the right person or persons who can make it happen.
I told several people with a large social media presence and some famous people about it to help get the word out.
I hate taking out trees, but when they are too big for their location or dead or dying, they need to come down for safety’s sake.
If you think this is a landmark that should be around for future generations to enjoy, please do what you can.
Some just rent the house, those who know about Gary’s house stay there and then play at Gary’s house.
If you want more information about playing at Gary’s house or staying in the house next door, check out the website Birthplace of DND.
