Wednesday Warm Fuzzy

The setup:

It catches my eye from across the room, begging for my attention. One shiny quarter would be all it takes to bring it to life - but I am Mom. I am the 30-year-old responsible for these other little beings. If I allow myself to get immersed in its flashy, bell-ringing world...I am shirking my duty. Or am I? Maybe, instead, I would be instilling in them an appreciation for the things of old. Teaching them a valuable life skill. Or maybe I would be the mom who ignores her kids in the game room. Either way, just a glimpse of one sends me into warm-fuzzyland.

The Warm Fuzzy:

Pinball Games

The History:

For 28 summers now, my family has vacationed in the same lazy little beach town. In the same building. Many times in the same condo in the same building in the same lazy little beach town. Little has changed over 28 years, but some of the changes have been heartbreaking. Beach erosion. Restaurant closures. The conversion of our seedy, beachfront gameroom into a monstrous, tacky t-shirt store.

This place was a kid's dream, a giant arcade with vintage games, within a 5 minute flip-flopped, sandy stroll from our place. And there's a 7-11 on the way! So with Slurpees in hand, Dad would distribute fistfuls of quarters and introduce us to the many wonders of arcade gaming. Skee-Ball lined the north wall. There were rows of Pac-Man and Galaga and all the good old games - that weren't old then - and tucked into corners were those old baseball games or poker games where you rolled a ball along a horizontal surface into holes of different point values.

Part of the arcade's awesomeness was its ventilation system - huge garage doors that opened onto the ocean, allowing the salty seabreeze to cool the barefoot gamers. And there was mini-golf on the roof - overlooking the beach, which to a kid is pretty mind-blowing. To an adult, a mini-golf course landscaped with gravel on the tar roof of a building in Florida in July is the hottest place on earth.

It was in this flashy sanctuary that I discovered pinball. There was a game I would run to, something about a castle. I loved its unknowns, watching the ball disappear and reappear on the other side of the machine. I loved the skill of smacking the buttons at exactly the right time to send the silver ball flying back into play. And I loved laughing with my dad at the voice that would occasionally yell "Get Back In There!" when the game mysteriously decided my round wasn't over yet.

I still love a good pinball game- but mostly I love remembering those times with my dad and brother, memories triggered by one glance at a machine.