Back in 1983, my mom was at a hobby store buying some model train stuff for my dad for his birthday, when she saw the old MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing) red boxed set, and since I had been reading the hobbit and LotR at the time, she bought it for me. I remember when she gave it to me, I had no idea what it was, but I sat down one Saturday afternoon and read the book. While it didn't make a lot of sense to me at 10, I got some friends together the next Saturday and we played the sample adventure, and we were all hooked. I also started compulsively buying all the old Grenadier LotR minis at that time for the game. We played MERP for about another year non-stop, before one of my friend's older brothers introduced use to 1st edition AD&D. After I played the first session, I went and bought the PHB, MM, MMII, FF, UA, and DMG with mowing money I had saved up, and that began our D&D craze.