Madden Day 2006

Madden, Miss. -- Frank Burks drove his truck to Joe Mack Thaggard's farm and parked it in the pasture like everyone else and wandered over to join the cheerleaders and the marching bands and the party.
"No question," said Burks, 57, "it's the biggest thing ever to happen in Madden."

Really. So what's the second biggest thing?

Burks pondered this for a good long while. "Nothing."

Burks laughed. The question turned out to be quite the stumper.

"The second biggest thing?" said Paulette Byrd who, along with her husband, owns the general store in town. "We had a daughter who was 6-4 who was pretty good in basketball."

So you can understand the fuss Tuesday morning. You can see why hundreds upon hundreds joined Burks at Joe Mack Thaggard's farm to celebrate Madden Day '07, and never mind if it isn't even '07 yet.

The people who make Madden NFL '07, the wildly popular video game, came to this tiny Mississippi town north of Jackson as part of the game's national rollout.

"Tiny?" said Jerry Rice, who was part of the celebration. "Look at all these people."

He waved his hand toward the pasture packed with bands and cheerleaders and kids and senior citizens.

"It's the biggest thing I've ever seen here," said Joe Reeves, 72.

And the second biggest thing?

"Honestly," he said, "I can't think of anything."

It began in 1972, with a game called PONG, and who knew it would remake American childhoods?

PONG was essentially ping-pong on TV. You'd twist a nob, and your paddle would move up and down, and a small white dot would go ping-ponging back and forth and back and forth and ... Hey, anyone want to go outside and play football?

That's how the games would inevitably end. Because PONG had its limitations. But PONG begat Space Invaders (1978), which began Pac-Man (1980), which begat John Madden Football (1989), which begat 16 more versions of the game, right up through Madden NFL '07.

"It's so real, it's scary," said Rice. Hey, he said it. Scary.

With video games like these, who needs reality?

"It's addictive," said Blake Evans, 12.

"I played it so long, I got blisters on my thumb," said Jason Rawson, 13.

Makes you miss skinned knees, doesn't it?

Which isn't to take anything away from Tuesday's party, a warm and happy gathering of chicken farmers and flag twirlers and former NFL players and John Madden.

"I'm 5-3, 130 pounds," said John Madden, 36. "I'm not that John Madden."

Whereupon John Madden pointed to another John Madden. His son, 3-month-old John Madden.

So Madden has two John Maddens, but not the famous one. It has a stop sign, but not a stoplight.

It has a part-time dentist (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), two churches (Baptist and Methodist) and a general store that lost its sign to Katrina.

"We have a little of everything," said Paulette Byrd, from behind the counter. "If you have time, you might find what you're looking for."

Video games?

"Naw," she said. "We don't do video games."

But nobody let that stand in the way of the fun, which started at 9:10 a.m., or roughly when the marching band arrived from Kosciusko.

Madden has a private school called Leake Academy.

"But we don't have a band," said Jennie Roland, one of the two school secretaries.

Ahhh, but they have cheerleaders. Altogether now:

"Go Madden! Play X-Box!"

"We came up with it ourselves," said Laura Katherine Henderson, 17.

After that, Bulus LeFlore took the microphone. He's in charge of the Madden post office. And he had the pleasure of announcing that everyone with a Madden post office box would get a new X-Box.

"That's 74 boxes," he said. "The slogan is 'We Deliver.' These X-Boxes will be delivered."

Except they won't be, really. The town is so small there's no home delivery.

But it was a sweet moment, just the same, in a proud day for the community.

"It's just nice to see so many people getting out and having such a good time," said LeFlore, and you catch the irony there, right?

Video games aren't about getting out. Video games are about staying in, often by yourself, staring at a television screen.

Zack McMillin, from this paper, covered the Memphis basketball team at the Maui Classic a few years ago. During the trip, in pursuit of an interview, he found some players in their hotel room.

They had their curtains drawn. In the middle of the afternoon. In Maui.

Playing video games.

"It's not living," said Murphy Thompson, 36, who stopped to chat at Byrd's store. "Jerry Rice didn't get to be a great football player playing X-Box. He was out slinging bricks with his father."

And then there's Warren Moon, also in town for the celebration. He tried to remember the first time he played a video game.

"Not until college," he said. "They didn't have them when I was a kid."

Really? So how'd you spend your time? Moon shrugged. "I used my imagination."