I've never met the man, but on one of the years where MPE didn't overlap w/ PATZ I took a drive to that side of the state to check it out with our then 6 year old son. Having just entered a local tournament while tagging along with me and coming up empty, he spent the entire car ride asking if there were going to be tournaments at this, and did I think he would win a trophy?

I spent the better part of 2 hours explaining to him that, while he's great at pinball, especially for his age - the tournaments at this have some of the best players in the world and take the better part of an entire day (or two) to compete in. He wasn't having it, and was insisting on entering. Not being a big tournament guy, I just wanted to check out some games and was half dreading the thought of having to deal with managing places in a queue, dealing with the disappointment on the way home, etc.

Imagine my surprise when we got there, found out there was a free kid's tournament (with trophies! ha), and it would be wrapped up in the better part of 1/2 hour. He entered, did the thing that I told him would be near impossible the entire ride there, and we were able to spend the rest of the day bonding over pinball. That bond exists to this day, and I'm grateful for the experience KOZ and other shows have provided. It's always cool to see someone helping the younger generations get into pinball - especially when reading this thread, it seems like he didn't have any kids of his own at the time.

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