I was always a fan of pinball growing up, however, was terrible at it, and as a child, 50 cents a play was too much for how little I could play compared to cabinets. I always heard from my dad that he was a "Pinball wizard" or at least would spend hours throwing money into pinball games and would have the machines he played tweaked by owners so it was harder to get free games. I think it also gave me a fascination with pinball since my dad wasn't much for arcade games but would take me to "Wonderland arcade" and spend his time on the pins while I played cabinets arcade games. My dad and I now go to arcades to play pinball which is one of the few things we do so Pinball will always be a place right in my "feels" that I will always enjoy
I Bought my first Pin about 4 years ago, a 1991 data east simpsons pin, fun story, I bought it through Ebay from someone in California. I had him hold it till I conveniently had to travel(we live in Oregon) down there to help a friend move home. Which we used his parent truck and trailer and they paid for gas. Which was a nice perk. In hindsight I won't buy on Ebay again, but make for a fun first Pin story.
This may be a lame story, so I apologize, but that's my story. Pinball is always able to captivate me more than any video game. Perhaps because emulators and video pinball are just not the same as watching a ball roll around and the adrenaline of finally getting that shot which progresses you through the game.