Wichita, KS
I'm always interested in hearing how others got into pinball because inevitably we've ended up in the same place (having an exorbitant amount of our time and energy focused on pounding flipper buttons and thinking about pinball). But somehow everyones' pinball orgin story seems to begin in relatively benign fashion. For me, it was a friend asking if I ever played pinball. He told me about a bar near my house that had a KISS pinball, and he was pretty pumped about it. I just remember thinking, "Yeah, I'm not a KISS fan." But with nothing else to do, I agreed to go have some drinks and play pinball.
After the first night hanging out at Jersey's playing pinball and drinking, I was hooked. I quickly started convincing my girlfriend to go and talking my friends into going to hang out. We pretty much stuck to KISS, but my girlfriend loved the Elvis machine poised next to KISS. We still quote "You're beautiful", as we use to hit the flipper buttons on Elvis between games for a consolation for our ridiculously short ball times.
Three years later I have 5 pins in the basement, play in tournements regularly, and have made a whole host of people I now call friends. And it all started with one machine, a few drinks, and good conversations in between games.
