Bluebeard Don’s history of pinball.

My earliest pinball was played at Seaside Heights boardwalk in 1968, the first year my family spent a week in Ortley beach just north of SH. I was 5, the youngest of 7. I was dragged into the arcades from my 4 older brothers. Each summer I would take the coins my oldest brother would save all year and give me the pennies. They would add up to around $20, nice for a week, that I would roll and arrive at the arcades ready to have fun. Once Fun n Games opened in Willowbrook mall first as about 8 pins at the entrance to the small theater next to Harmony Hut, around 1972. I always made sure to stop there when I visited the mall. This became an X-rated theater around 1974, so after about a year next to the porn,  Fun N Games moved outside the mall to the location it remained until the early 2000’s. Fun N Games in the 1970’s was filled exclusively with Pins, about 50. This was THE reason to go to the mall with my friends.  It was 1975 when my hometown of Cedar Grove opened PoBoys sub shop where the had two pins at a time, that my fascination of pinball exploded. In the following years, they had what became my favorite pins. From Kingpin, to Spirit of 76, and the new Solid State classics of Stars, Close Encounters to Meteor, the years of 1975-80 I spent my money on getting buzzed and playing pinball.