A STORY WORTH TELLING
“He’s a pinball wizard, There has got to be a twist.
A pinball wizard’s Got such a supple wrist.”
— Song lyrics ‘The Pinball Wizard” by The Who
Remember video games?
Yeah, I know they’re still around. I’m talking about early iterations — Nintendo, Pac-Man, Pong, Odyssey. I don’t know the history of video games, but I have no doubt my son does.
Video games have been Lee’s life-long hobby. A whole room in his house is dedicated to gaming— thousands of games, hundreds of collectible consoles.
If I remember correctly, Lee was about seven or eight when he fixed a defunct Apple 2e computer I had tossed aside after buying a new Mac Plus.
He had it working and was playing games on it in short order. He will be 44 in a couple of weeks. Still plays games.
I called games a fad in the 80s. Sitting in the dark one night trying to master the art of zapping cascading objects before they reached the bottom of the screen. I am trying to remember what it was called. Lee would know.
Cut me some slack, though. I grew up embracing pinball machines and pool tables for recreation.
Frequenting the Pittsburg pool hall in the old icehouse by the railroad tracks. Where the last time I looked, church services were being conducted. And, my East Texas State University transcript would likely look better had I spent as much time in class as I did in Pope’s Pool Hall in downtown Commerce.
To me, “gaming” was mastering flipper buttons on a pinball machine. The rush of ringing bells and flashing lights, keeping the silver ball in play as long as possible.
On machines like the one I happened upon one night a few years ago. It was in a dim corner of an old convenience store in rural Wisconsin, between the Milwaukee airport and my destination hotel.
Dubbed something about asteroids and aliens, the refugee from an earlier age sat among a couple of tables used for enjoying dine-in convenience store cuisine experiences. Like hot dogs grilling under a heat lamp since the Christmas holidays. A faint warm glow invited the next pinball wizard to save the universe.
I paid my tab for hotel room necessities — a bottle of water, aspirin and a crossword puzzle magazine.
Then looked around.
The only soul present other than me was the clerk, who, after taking my money, turned her attention back to her dog-eared paperback romance novel and diet Coke.
I turned to leave but stopped short of the door. Surrendering to the machine’s siren song, I went to the dark corner, set my sack on a nearby table and dug for loose change.
Feeding the coin slot awakened slumbering internal electronics.
Lights flashed, bells rang and a deep electronic “Darth Vaderish” voice issued dire warnings regarding my future in the universe.
I cracked my knuckles, rolled up my sleeves and grabbed the sides of the machine.
After a couple of practice taps on the flipper buttons, I pulled the release knob back and sent the first ball flying around the top and into play.
Game on.
I bounced it off the bumpers. Lights flashed faster. Bells rang louder. My score was mounting up faster than numbers on the gas pump at Walmart.
My old pinball posture was back. I twisted and turned with every ball. I hammered the buttons. I talked to the machine. I defended my ship and the galaxy, fighting gallantly without thought for my own safety. Alien invaders went down one after another, victims of my lightning laser fire with the silver balls.
In mere minutes, I had fought my way to galactical glory faster than Luke Skywalker.
Then it happened.
I met my outer space Waterloo in the form of a sonar-sounding, guntoting, light-year traveler. It was over faster than a high school summer romance in September. Like awakening from an afternoon nap dream, I was beamed from far reaches of the galaxy back to a Midwestern C-store at sundown. The machine slipped back into slumber.
The cashier was still deep in her alter ego romance. But I detected a set of eyes looking up at me — a young alien defender who could not have been more than eight or nine. “Are you through, mister,” the lad asked softly and politely?
I threw my shoulders back, looked at my score with pride, and said, “I am. It’s your turn now. Do you play this pinball machine often?”
“Yes sir,” he said, reaching in his pocket for his fare to fight space aliens.
“So, what’s your best score,” I quizzed him.
Smiling with pride at my 100,000 points still flashing on the board.
“Just three hundred and forty thousand,” the youngster replied as he fed the coin slot and took his stance at the controls. “But I’m going to beat that tonight.”
I picked up my bag and headed out the door, tossing a “good luck” to the kid. And the romance reading clerk. Still 20 minutes from my hotel room, I looked forward to a cozy evening with a crossword puzzle.
Fourteen across, six letters, third letter is an O. “Popular space-themed pinball machine game from the 1960s.”
