Only built for elvish linx pt.3

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
I've gotten a lot of questions from folks like this:

Your post got me really curious, and I have an eight year old son who is mad about pseudo-D&D computer games.  I've never played D&D myself, but definitely qualify as a Nerd (I played Advent on a mainframe for crying out loud.  The terminal was a yellow paper teletypewriter.).  Do you think I could learn D&D and teach him at the same time?  Any recommendations on how to get started?
I've just started back, so I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I went with First edition because it was what I knew, and because I actually like the complexity. I do know this--DMing is really, really hard and I'd forgotten how much prep work it takes. Think of it like this--you're the director of a film, but you have no idea what your actors are going to do. Anyway, anyone got any thoughts on the above question?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2008/08/only-built-for-elvish-linx-pt3/5635/