I first fell in love with pinball in 1964 at the age of 7. Once a week, my family ate dinner at a restaurant across the street from our apartment in Chicago. The restaurant had a side room with a bar that had a Heat Wave pinball machine. I put every dime I could beg for into that machine. I had to stand on a stool to play it. My goal was always to get the thermometer in the backbox to reach "Blow Your Top," but I never got it that far. Then, one day maybe a year later, the game was suddenly gone with no game replacing it. I was so bummed. I didn't see another Heat Wave until over ten years later. It was a beat-up one at an arcade in California. I didn't reach "Blow Your Top" then either.

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