Saturday, December 03, 2005

Pinball Machines

I know that most of you "punks" out there are just too damn young to ever have had the plaesure of doin battle with a pinball machine.. In my misspent youth I was a regular in the pool halls, and yes even over in the Oklahoma beerjoints.. This is probably gonna be a long one kids, so get ready to stay awhile..
My last period in school was either gonna be study hall(I fought with the teacher all the time), Band( I'll just say it sucked), and sports(mom and dad vetoed sports).. For a time I enjoyed bein a manager(mostly rehab for and tapein and bandagein injured players) for the football team.. I got to make all the games on the sideline(friday nites out of the house,garawnteed), and either the players were nice to me or I would "hurt" them(looked cool bein respected by the jocks), and I got to wear an official team jersey(cheerleader recognition) !!
I got thru football season and actually got my folks talked into lettin me play basketball that year.. Back then the girls and boys team would share a bus to out-of-town games.. So, I got to be friends with some of the girl players and on the ride home would often get the pleasure of an athletic young lady resting her head on my shoulder while she napped..
Girls are girls, but a mans gotta be a man sometimes.. I thought that year was the year for me.. I dropped sports and of any kind, skipped last period study hall and hit the poolhalls.. Me and another buddy or two would go to old, wood floor, musty poolhalls and shoot pool while old men played dominoes or cards near-by.. I got perty good on a regulation table..
Bout that time I realized that shootin pool was a lot better if you were havin a good coldbeer at the time.. That started my regular trips across the Red River(18 miles) to the trusty old beerjoint that served damn cold longneck beer and a cheap draught beer.. Keep in mind I shared this place with a bunch of grown and rowdy loggers and Indians and truck drivers.. Not zactly Sesame Street here !! Back then it cost 75 cents for a longneck and 25 cents for a draught that must have been about 16 ounces, if that tells ya how many years ago this was..
I should have had a good idea how my life was gonna go back then from the events that happened then..
This place was the kind that old western movies remend me of.. Fights break out often and will spill out into the parkin lot and end with a shootin or a dandy fight.. One time a guy got took outside and had his ass whooped real good, then he unloads a 12 gauge thru the windows of the place as hes leavin.. Gary Stewart, Merle Hagard, and Billy Joe Royal played a steady rythm from the jukebox too.. The pinball machine was always busy with a waitin list as long as your arm.. A game of pinball was a dime back then.. Those loggers that were to drunk to play pool would bet whole weeks checks on a game of pinball.. Their checks werent nuthin to sneeze at either..
I graduated from the Oklahoma beerjoints to the the big city of Paris, population 12 thousand.. Paris had a bowlin alley too, and that became my new hangout for a while.. Pool tables, pinball, and bowlin.. No beer tho.. I did say "for a while" !! Thru the bowlin alley I got acquanted with some folks from the area and learned of the Sand Bar at the lake about 15 miles out of town towards Oklahoma.. Keg parties and trash-can punch and killer dope (that cost around 20 bucks for an ounce) and weekend-long parties became my new weekend home.. The coast has beach bunnies, and Texas lakes has some damn fine lookin honeys that go to them too..
Pinball machines kinda skipped my mind for a few years, and a few years after pinball was when Atari(tm) came out.. Pong and pinball were their first big sellers that I know of.. It was the first I had anyway..
My point in this is to find out when the last time ANYONE reading this played pinball .. REAL pinball !!

6 Comments:

Blogger citizen_us said...

Wild Bill, my father passed away last nite, I am using my sisters computer a couple of hundred miles from home and do not have the address of the EastTexas group.

Please be so kind to tell them that I shall return in a couple of days.
Thanks, my friend
Harold

12:39 PM, December 04, 2005  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

Our thoughts and prayers are comin your way buddy.. We have lost loved ones too and grieve with you.. Know that we will be waitin for ya when you get back to your regular spot..

1:48 PM, December 04, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ya touched a chord with me here Bill but somehow I think I am missing something your are saying.

35 yrs ago at what now seems was the 'old Santa Cruz beach and Boardwalk' my brother and I were hooked on the pinballs. 3 games for a quarter and some games 10 cents ea.. Many there were pretty old and funky and we loved em. That damn ever elusive high score drove me nuts. I always thought someone just opened the machine and set it just to keep us competing.

7:14 AM, December 05, 2005  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

I'm just tryin to dig for some memories of the "old" days .. You know.. The simpler days..
I heard somebody sayin that the new games kids play today are causin frustrations in them and that is what leads to their actions that sometimes become destructive..
I dont know bout you, but those damn pinball machines I used to play were perty damn frustrating, and it sounds like you played a tough one or two yourself..
And another point that I'm tryin to figger out is whether other folks close to my age, enjoy Christmas as much now, as they did back then..
Wish I could get a bunch of comments on this so I would have a better idea how thangs are today compared to back then.. I've got some more folks I plan to ask too, so if I can get enuff for me to form an idea about it, I'm gonna have a post about it and my thoughts on it..
It was open-ended the way I wrote it for a reason, and is meant to be carried on in several postings..
Ya'll open up and give lots of thoughts and share your memories with us..

2:38 PM, December 05, 2005  
Blogger citizen_us said...

I can remember playing the real thing in 1978.
We had a pizza joint in dundee, that had a couple of machines a few years before i was done with school
They were still there in 1980, but Asteroids and Defender came out and that was pretty much the end of it.

4:03 PM, December 06, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I played pin ball with a vengence and sometimes wished my brother would hurry up and lose to get my chance again. (we were very competetive)

I think Christmas is mostly a family thing. My family is scattered all over the US. I have only a grandon and he is with me almost daily (am self employed) and for the last week straight. (my daughter is here but has some dysfunctions) and my mom just moved to Kansas to retire amd live with my brother. I set up early for Christmas but cannot get into it unless my grandson is here. I'm finding it to be a formality other than that but attribute it to my loss of zeal cause kids love it and kids are cool. In fact they are infectious and I am lucky to be around them because of my grandson friends.

I joined Disney's Toontown online for my grandson. Is is a lighthearted cartoon game yet my grandson gets frustrated at times when he plays and I had to warn him if it wasn't fun he couldn't play. I don't think the frustration is because of the game but of his demanding his way and not accepting he must compete and cannot control.

3:13 PM, December 07, 2005  

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