My Pinball Experience So Far

     The  pinball machines I was not allowed to play that were in the restaurants my parents and I ate lunch at during our visits to our relatives in PA at least once every month, during my first 18 years from late 1940s to early 1960s grabbed my attention enough to create an obsession that remained dormant until a little before I turned 25 during the Fall of 1971 when a pin was put into my favorite hangout. Soon after I got started with pinball there I became dissatisfied with those public pins I did not choose or maintain. (I don't get much satisfaction from playing a pin that replays can't be won on or other things don't work properly on. So much for traveling to pinball shows to pay an admission fee to play pins that have had the replay units and coin mechs disabled.) I got into traveling from Corning, NY to Mansfield, PA for the purpose of playing replay pinball in the Fall of 1971.The first time I played replay pinball was such a memorable occasion that I have decided to make my latest search for a pin just like the 1971 pin I played at that pizzeria in 1971 in the same condition it was in then.  I have a never been on a route pin just like the one that was in that same pizzeria and made by that same manufacturer shortly after, so hopefully, acquiring this model in same condition will work out. On election day of 1971 I traveled to Williamsport, PA and bought my very own pin. After I reconditioned it to my satisfaction I did my best to make up for lost time. During the next four years I played at least 100,000 plays on it.

     I never got into playing blindfolded but that Pinball Wizard song by the Who inspired me to get into playing with a minimum of conscious thought and a hair trigger tilt setting. Playing this way resulted in learning that the music I listen to and the foods I eat and all else affect my pinball game, and learning that whatever helps my pinball game helps everything else in my life. As a result, I have been upgrading. With the help of pinball, I have become very aware of the way I am affected by food, music, and all else, and have improved my life accordingly. My avatar is a picture of my favorite singer, who was not even a gleam in her father's eye back in 1971 when I got into pinball. Saying her music is the best pinball music I have run across and the best pinball music I expect to run across would be an under statement. As pinball has made me aware of a path to positive changes in my life, listening to Shakira's music (my kind of Shak Attack)  helps make those positive changes happen.

     I guess for the sake of completeness  I should mention playing in New York State pinball tournament in 1975 where I did lousy, 1976 improved, and 1977 where I got into the top quarter, but tournament play is no big deal to me. Pinball has confirmed to me the fact that biorhythm charts really work. I know that everyone has their predictably better and predictably worse times and winning and losing seems to be more about a player's biorhythmic and astrological situation relative to the opponent's at the time the game is held than how good a player they are. This goes for all sports competitions.

     Since 1971 when I acquired my first pin I have acquired some more pins including some  add-a-balls I operated in NY  from Fall of 1975 to Fall of 1978. After 1978 I sold my add-a-balls and kept my replay pins.

      In 1996 I moved into the upstairs apartment in my father's house to help him, and my pins have been in storage in one of the rooms for lack of time to do anything with them ever since. I went through another pinball-dormant time from 1996  until 2005 when I got the idea to use Visual Pinball installed in the computer for my shortcut back to pinball.