I grew up in Hunstville, Alabama, so--perhaps appropriately--instead of D&D it was Traveller that my best friend across the street got around Thanskgiving, '77. That Christmas, visiting relatives, I introduced a couple of cousins and a friend of theirs to rpgs with Traveller (who didn't want to be Han Solo in 1977?). The cousins never played again, but their friend ended up six years later going to the same military boarding school as me, and then we ran into each other again twelve years after that in Yellowstone Park; we've been friends and/or neighbors off and on since then.