It’s OK, it’s Legal.

[RNajarian]

Entertainment options for youth growing up in the early 70s were nothing like the plethora of options available for today's kids. The Atari 2600 gaming system wouldn't be available until 1977 and even then not everyone would have one. Television options were equally as abysmal leaving the only real option being hanging around with friends, bike riding, or playing ball.


Playing pinball was the highlight of the week. Back then one quarter would get you two credits of a 5 ball game. Dad would give my 2 brothers and I each a dollar every Saturday to do whatever we wanted. We got on our bikes and rode to the local public pool where there were 4 pinball machines just waiting for my $1.00. By today's standards, $1.00 may not sound like a lot of money, but that dollar translated to 40 balls of pinball, not including earned extra balls, earned free games and the oh so coveted Match!

If my brothers and I took turns watching each other play we could milk the $3.00 my dad gave us to 2 to 3 hours of pure entertainment. The problem was when the money ran out. We needed our pinball fix. How were we going to get more play time once the money ran out?

It wasn't long after we fed our last quarter into the machine that we realized something GLORIOUS. Most kids at the pool didn't realize for every quarter you got TWO credits. Most kids would play one game then walk away after the fifth ball. Cue the vultures.

After our last quarter we would hang around the pinball machines bouncing a flat tennis ball to each other, waiting for our prey. In no time our victim would appear with a shiny quarter. He would select a game and drop it into the coin slot. The credit kicker came alive, "BAM BAM."

Before the game started one of us would casually ask our prey, "Are you any good at pinball?" TRANSLATION: "Do you know you have two credits?" "Yea, I'm pretty good" meant both credits would be used. "No I'm not" meant one of us might get a free game.

The player would play his 5 balls and if they were unaware there was a second credit would then walk away. Being the youngest I asked my brothers, "If we play the second credit aren't we stealing?"

My older brother, who eventually became a lawyer, explained the "legalities" to us. "If they walk away, they forfeit the extra credit and we are legally allowed to play it." I was 7 years old at the time and had no idea what "forfeit " meant but I DID understand we were allowed to play the second credit. It was OK, because it was legal. So we played the forfeited games all summer and into the next.

It absolutely amazed my dad that with three dollars we would be gone all day. We never got around to telling him how we were able to do it. He wouldn't have understood anyway. He wasn't a lawyer. Our little scam worked great until one horrific Tuesday. The vendor supplying the pinball machines had come to rotate out the machines.


We couldn't believe it!

Evil Knievel! Solid state with the NASA digital displays, NOT the electromechanical digit counters, but the fancy digital displays you only saw when watching clips of the moon landing.

It seemed like an eternity while the delivery man set it up, but finally it was time. My brother went first, he dropped his quarter into the coin slot, "BAM." We looked at each other. We only got one credit! We immediately told the delivery man the machine was broken, we only got one credit.

"Sorry boys, inflation" the delivery man explained. I didn't know what inflation meant, but I quickly realized I wasn't going to get any more forfeits.

. . . and in a flash our racket was over. What once was 4-5 hours playing pinball was now 90 minutes. With that our childhood had ended.

Fast forward 50 years, I was with my son at the Wolf Lodge in their arcade. While he was off playing a Sponge Bob game I was looking at a Fast and Furious arcade driving game. A young kid came out of nowhere and asked me "Are you any good?"

'What?" I surprisingly asked.

"Are you good at this game?" the young boy repeated.

"No, terrible. AWFUL!" I replied. I paused for a moment and asked the boy "How about you, are you any good?"

"I'm pretty good" he replied.

I handed him the $10 I was holding and said "Go ahead, show me how it's done."

In disbelief he asked "Really?"

I said, "Yea, go ahead, it's legal."

[Dixie]

I rather like these vignette posts. Y'all's stories prompt me to revisit my own life and youth.

(Nope, no story. I just remember playing pinball and hanging out at the O Club in '73. I thought I was so cool and sexy. Lol)

[stevej37]

We would 'tilt' the machine and then get our quarter back.
Only worked once or twice before they caught on.

I remember a pinball place where we would get a burger, fries, and a coke for 50 cents.
Go there for lunch....play and eat...back to school.

[Racerbvd]

I wish I still owned my EK pinball machine.

[craigster59]

I always preferred the flippers on the Williams machines over Bally. I was a pinball playing fool! Always thought about getting a mid 1970's machine.

[RNajarian]

Originally Posted by craigster59

I always preferred the flippers on the Williams machines over Bally. I was a pinball playing fool! Always thought about getting a mid 1970's machine.

If you’ve got the room, go for it. I’ve got a PinBot and a Fire. Makes shop day in the garage with the guys a lot of fun. That and the fridge full of beer.

[Superman]

I've got many stories, Dixie. Here's one:

I grew up in a logging town in N. Idaho. About 200 people. We rode our bikes through town with .22 rifles across the handlebars. Etc. Anyhoo.....

The town had 12 bars and they were all on the same side of the street. We'd step from the alley through the back door of Resor's. At the bottom of the wooden stairs was a poo table with leather pockets. The bartender had the rack of balls which he was happy to give us. His nose looked like a big red potato with a surface like the Moon. When we were done, we would pay him for the time. Usually a quarter.

From the street, the pool table was sort of behind a glass-walled area basically inside the bar with a barber and a barber's chair inside it. Barber was usually reading in the chair.

A string went across the room near ceiling height but reachable with our pool cues and the string had beads on it. They were for keeping score.

Also, from the Main Street front door perspective there was a curtain at the end of the long bar. Behind that curtain was a good sized round table. Basically next to the pool table and fully visible to us. Every single time we went in there, the table had between 4 and 7 poker players at it and money on the table. I kid you not when I say they looked like the human equivalents of the dogs in the poker painting complete with hats (bowler, pork pie, striped conductor, fedora, etc) and cigars. These guys looked exactly like the dogs, they were there ALL the time, and their faces were expressionless.

Hey PWD....show me a good pool shooter and I'll show you someone who has spent too much time in bars.

I grew up in the best possible place to be a boy. The town had, and I'm still not kidding here, what is said to be the highest navigable river in the world, running through it. Lined with tallCottonwood trees. Perfect for Tarzan swings. We stole the rope from the floating log booms.

When the bowling alley burned down, there was nothing to do but swim, fish, play pool, ride bikes, play baseball, basketball, football, etc., and fistfight. I smile and sigh whenever I think of that time in my life. I was so lucky.

[Brian 162]

I remember in 73/74 when the arcade got what I think was the first video game. Pong,

[Por_sha911]

You youngsters crack me up. I remember playing pinball for a dime a game!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

You youngsters crack me up. I remember playing pinball for a dime a game!

Me too. On base at Maxwell AFB, at the bowling alley. 10 cents and I had some long games with bonus rounds for high scores.

[pwd72s]

Me three...but remember, those were silver content dimes. Makes me cry thinking of how many I fed into pin ball machines.

[pwd72s]

Super...not necessarily, the pool/bar thing. That's not so common these days...because if you're old enough to be in a bar, you're too old to become a top player. Maybe even in the old days as well. Willie Mosconi's dad owned a pool hall...when he first started playing, he had to stand on a crate to make a shot.

My honorary nephew, who shoots at near journeyman pro level, doesn't drink. But then, he will enter a bar tournament now and then. So, I guess he spends some time in bars. His problem is that many times if he shows up today, he finds he can't play...his ranking (Fargo rating just below 700) is too high for tournaments listed for below 500 or below 400 players only.

[Pazuzu]

Even now, you can walk down the line of pinball games at the cool bars that have them, and just as often as not, find a free game or two left behind. Either people not knowing how it worked, or being too tipsy to continue, or just leaving games behind out of laziness.

In college, I got so good at the two or three pinball games in the Union that I regularly left 3 or 4 games behind, after playing 4 or 5 games on 50 cents, because I had to split for class.

There was a Star Wars game at the Illini Inn that had a broken tilt mechanism, you could lift the end of the table up as far as your arms could handle, and if you were fast enough you'd save every gutterball. But, after a few beers, you tended to put the game down on the ground too hard, and everyone in the bar would turn and look at you, and the bartender would kick you out.

[Pazuzu]

Are we tellin' stories now?


I grew up 3 blocks from the largest industrial park in the world (at least at that time). Several square miles of nothing but manufacturing, warehousing, design, repair, etc. Several square miles of parking lots and back alleys that were empty every night and most weekends. Several square miles of dumpsters filled with the most glorious things (think, slightly bent BMX handles, boxes, pallets, and Playboys, so many Playboys...). Also several square miles of forgotten back packing areas, loading docks, empty lots, etc. We would scrounge everything needed to build a fort (I mean EVERYTHING, materials, tools, nails, everything), and it would stay for weeks at a time, sometimes all summer. Whether it was our skill at scouting out good locations, or warehouse managers not caring that some kids build a lean-to in the far corner of the lot under that rotten tree, no one will ever know.

That's when I learned two things that most of America doesn't seem to know.
Thing one...when an 18 wheeler is driving down a street, making a 47 point turn to get into a dock, or just about anything...GO FAR AWAY. No need to get your little crapbox car all in their face honking, nothing is going to happen other than you getting your car run over.
Thing two...the people working there, putting in 12 hour days, listening to Mariachi music, driving home in the dark after a snowstorm, THEY are what keeps American running, not the white collar people, not the over educated people.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by RNajarian

If you’ve got the room, go for it. I’ve got a PinBot and a Fire. Makes shop day in the garage with the guys a lot of fun. That and the fridge full of beer.

LOL .... you might want to check IDs on some of those guys .... cool pic !

I was to cheap to feed my lawn mowing coins into a juke box or pinball machines... much... once the coin became more than a dime

TILT! ... the agony of defeat...

[Baz]

Back in the 80's when I had a gig as a vocational instructor at the local community college in Daytona, I'd hit up the Chucky Cheese in the mall nearby after class to play their Asteroids machine.

I became quite proficient and really enjoyed the overall concept of the game more than any I'd ever played - including pinball. Nothing like blasting rocks and space ships in outer space using a laser!

Fast forward to the late 90's and I decided to go ahead and just buy my own.

It's in my living room and works great! I did have to send out the AR and main logic board for repairs about 3 years ago plus replaced the big blue capacitor. Used a guy from an arcade facebook group.

[rwest]

Originally Posted by Baz

Back in the 80's when I had a gig as a vocational instructor at the local community college in Daytona, I'd hit up the Chucky Cheese in the mall nearby after class to play their Asteroids machine.

I became quite proficient and really enjoyed the overall concept of the game more than any I'd ever played - including pinball. Nothing like blasting rocks and space ships in outer space using a laser!

Fast forward to the late 90's and I decided to go ahead and just buy my own.

It's in my living room and works great! I did have to send out the AR and main logic board for repairs about 3 years ago plus replaced the big blue capacitor. Used a guy from an arcade facebook group.

Brother from another mother...

I have a Donkey Kong in my living room! Can’t say I really play it much, but it was my favorite as a teenager in the ‘80s

[shoemakj]

In 1974, my dad brought home a 1972 Williams FAN-TAS-TIC pinball machine. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! I was 12 at the time and already getting pretty good at pinball. But having our own "real" machine took things to another level. It took nickels, dimes and quarters (10c for one play, 3 for a quarter)

A few months later Tommy, the movie was released and pinball really took off. We were definitely the coolest house in the neighborhood that year. (Among the adults and kids)

Fast forward to about 1976 and I found another FAN-TAS-TIC machine still in service at a small motel arcade. I put 1 quarter in it and played it until I max'ed out the number of credits (which as I remember was 38) and walked away from it. I don't know how many times I rolled the score counter over Fun times!

We only sold that machine 3 years ago because we were moving my mom (now 89) from "the family farm" into a smaller place. I was sad to see it go, but I didn't have room for it either.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by rwest

Brother from another mother...
I have a Donkey Kong in my living room! Can’t say I really play it much, but it was my favorite as a teenager in the ‘80s

Very cool, Rutager! LOVE Donkey Kong!

[RNajarian]

Part 2 of my Pinball Journey. . .


My wife wonders why I am so insistent about keeping my PinBot and Fire! pinball machines in tip top shape. She didn't understand the necessity for me to disassemble 1/2 my playfield to upgrade 40 year old incascedent lights to LED, or why I scour the internet to replace any chipped, cracked or worn playfield piece.

This life event likely explains my obsession with my pinball machine maintenance. . .

A quarter in 1975 would be worth $1.50 today. Feeding my pinball addiction became very expensive, I simply couldn't get enough silver ball time. Dad would weekly give us $1.00 over the summer to use however we choose, but as you can guess the money never lasted as long as we wanted.

Our nearest neighbor in Geauga County Ohio lived 2 miles away. They owned the private golf/tennis/pool club Berkshire Hills Country Club. The Kapel's were very nice. One day Kevin Kapel saw me hanging around the pinball machines near the pool waiting for someone to walk away from a game with leftover credits. He asked "You want to play pinball at my house?"

"Yea, but I don't have any quarters ."

Kevin laughed "No it's free, you don't need any quarters."

Just then a light from the Heavens appeared and a Choir of Angels sang.

I died and went to heaven. We got in his golf cart and drove to the promised land. There were four pinball machines In Kevin's basement, was I dreaming? He flipped a switch and they all but one came to life. " That one is broken, but go ahead, play the others as long as you want, I'll be upstairs."

Where to begin?

I started with the game closest to me. I don't remember the name but it was a playing card theme. I started the game, held my breath and pulled back on the plunger. The game came to life, lights flashing, sling shots popping and digit counters falling. I was in heaven . . . until . . . the ball made its way to the pop bumpers and all of a sudden got hung up on a broken piece of rubber from the pop bumper. The broken rubber prevented normal game play.

No problem, there were still two more machines to experience.

The second game was a cowboy themed machine. I started the machine and heard a series of clicking. I waited for the ball to appear in the shooter's lane. More clicking. . . still no ball. In desperation I pulled the ball shooter hoping for a miracle. Still nothing. The clicking continued as if to taunt me. I turned that machine off and went to the last one.

The third machine had a hippie theme. A "flower power" image was on the side. This was my last chance for glory. I scanned the playfield. No broken rubber. That was a good sign. I gave myself a credit and waited, a series of clicks then the ball appeared in the shooter's lane. Whew!! I noticed the rubber at the end of the ball shooter was broken and in pieces in the shooters lane but that wasn't going to stop me from getting to the promised land. I pulled back on ball shooter and despite the rubber fragments the ball took off. The ball went into the pop bumpers and they came to life, almost angry they had been idle for so long. The ball went racing through a gate on the left and was headed to the right side flipper. CONTACT The ball flew straight up at 100 miles an hour then worked its way around the pop bumpers until it headed towards the left flipper. . .


nothing. . . the left flipper quivered a little but hardly moved. In desperation I repeatedly hit the flipper button but still nothing. The ball drained and then a series of clicks happened. Ball 2 was ready in the shooters lane. I repeatedly hit the left flipper button hoping for a miracle but the flipper never came to life. I was on my way to heaven but I ended up in hell.

Kevin must not have known his machines were in such disrepair. Not wanting to be rude I played one flipper hippie pinball for 30-40 minutes then went upstairs. Kevin was on the phone, I waved thank you and let myself out for the walk home.

The disappointment of not being able to play that day has stayed with me ever since. That's why if you ever come to play my PinBot or Fire! I promise that you will not be disappointed. My wife may not get it, but something tells me you guys do.