Not as good as some but this is my very short story and it's actually about an early 80's arcade game.

In the 83/84 timeframe I was a Sophmore engineering major at a college in north eastern PA.

Every Sat night a buddy of mine and I would have a few beers and then head to a local arcade to play Joust. 2 person. He flew the long winged ostrich and I flew the short one.

We were the masters of that game.

We had the 3 highest scores and no one could touch them.

I always loved that game and wondered what I happened to it.

Fast forward 30 years.

I get a call from another acquaintance who I went to college with that lives on Long Island.

He is at a small mom and pop arcade and he spots Joust and decides to play it.

He sucks as he did back when, but when the high score comes up he spots my initials still in the top 3.

He calls several college friends to track me down and gets me on the phone.

Last summer I drive up and talk to the owner.

We talk for a long time and he thinks I'm nuts. He pulls a 3 ring binder from the game with 30+ years of maintenance records. Sure enough its first home was in a long gone mall arcade in northeastern PA.

It traveled to several other places in PA, Cedar Point and then a few places in Ohio, over to NJ, and then a few places on Long Island.

I beg him for the game and offered him more than it's worth.

No dice. I gave him my business card and left.

Last week he called.

He's retiring and closing up and he offered me the game at a reasonable price.

I'm headed up next week.

This will be the only arcade game and only solid state game in my collection.

By it's finally coming home.

Great episode.

But I'm guessing my scores are stored in memory and don't need a battery.

And yes I will be careful.

Already seeing what parts I can find.

It didn't look too bad, but it's a 35 year old CRT which I'm sure is totally burned.