Long lost love

I was born in the early seventies in a quite little town on the west side of Michigan. In the late seventies when I was old enough to start getting into trouble my friends and I found a sweet little arcade in town. Only problem was that is was located across the train tracks and a divided highway that ran through town. The train tracks was my "limit". We weren't allowed to cross the tracks without parental supervision. Unfortunately the "call of the arcade" was a much stronger voice than my parents and I found myself sneaking over to the arcade at least a few times a week. Even if I didn't have any money, I still enjoyed walking around in there watching others play all of those awesone games. I played some of the video games like Tron and Asteroids, but the silver balls always claimed most of my quarters when I had them. The owner even set up a deal if you brought in your report card from school, you would get quarters based on your grades to play in the arcade. I must admit my report cards didn't ever lead to large winnings in quarters, but hey, free games are free games.

In the early eighties arcades were on their way out and the owner decided to gut the arcade and replace it with a restaurant. I was devastated. Now the only place to play was a couple pizza shops in town that always had one pin stuffed in a corner to keep teens occupied while we waited for our pizza. I played as often as I could, but it wasn't the same as the old arcade. Eventually I went back to where the old arcade was and got a job in the restaruant that replaced it. I can't complain really since it is the place I met my wife.

After marriage life got busy. Work and kids was the new norm and sega genesis took over arcade pleasure and then sony playstation. We were seasonal campers and the campgrounds we stayed at all had at least one pin in their gameroom. One park manager would even let my two freinds and I come in after hours to play pinball by ourselves which usually went into the early morning hours. I loved pinball. It was a real stress reliever for me. Just standing "in the position" in front of those machines washed all my problems away, even if it was only for a few minutes. It brought me back to standing in that little arcade in Hudsonville when I was just tall enough to see 3/4 of the playfield.

Unfortunately like everything else, times change. The economy went into the toilet and forced us to sell our camper. No more pinball. There is no place close to my house that has machines to play so soon I forgot those feelings for pinball and let them slip away. A few years ago we had a really bad winter here and I plow snow so I was really busy working nights plowing which led to afternoons at home with nothing to do. I was playing on the internet and googled "pinballs for sale" and found a little place a few miles away from my house that had video games for sale. I stopped in and they had a Starship Troopers pinball for sale in my budget. Now I had a machine in my own house that I could play anytime I want. A long lost love was realized and I'm not letting this love go again. I did end up selling Starship Troopers because the sound of the machine drove me up a wall. I'm learning as I go what machines are fun and not so fun. I only have room for a couple machines at my house, so I typically get a game and play it for a year or two and trade it for something different once I'm sick of it. My goal is once my kids haved moved on, to turn one of thier rooms into my game room so I can have more machines. Until then, we work with what we have. Either way, the Silver Balls are here to STAY!! Play on my ffriends!!