- Thread Starter
- #17
Hiya,
It was 1961 when I was 12 that pinball became a major part of my free time. There was an extremely large bowling alley only a 15 minute bike ride from my house, and it became a fun place to hang out. There was a 'billiards' room (pockets), and 32 bowling lanes on each side of a wide carpeted walkway. Also on this walkway was a circular room with all glass windows and inside were 10 pinball machines inna circle pattern.
Now, living in Chicago back then you got 4 TV channels plus one useless Public Channel. That was it. No cable and remote controls were expensive on TV sets back then.
After plenty of practice some games rarely cost me more than the initial 10 cent coin. Yep, 10 cents a play or 3 for 25 cents.
One common incident was the replacement of the fairly thick glass protecting the playing field. Not strange to see a player get pissed off and bang on that glass in frustration. Sometimes the glass would break, and that's when the alley employees would jump into action. Would take just a few minutes to install a new glass and charged the culprit $5 for the repair. Heh, I still have a small scar on my knuckle from something or other......I forget.
It was 1961 when I was 12 that pinball became a major part of my free time. There was an extremely large bowling alley only a 15 minute bike ride from my house, and it became a fun place to hang out. There was a 'billiards' room (pockets), and 32 bowling lanes on each side of a wide carpeted walkway. Also on this walkway was a circular room with all glass windows and inside were 10 pinball machines inna circle pattern.
Now, living in Chicago back then you got 4 TV channels plus one useless Public Channel. That was it. No cable and remote controls were expensive on TV sets back then.
After plenty of practice some games rarely cost me more than the initial 10 cent coin. Yep, 10 cents a play or 3 for 25 cents.
One common incident was the replacement of the fairly thick glass protecting the playing field. Not strange to see a player get pissed off and bang on that glass in frustration. Sometimes the glass would break, and that's when the alley employees would jump into action. Would take just a few minutes to install a new glass and charged the culprit $5 for the repair. Heh, I still have a small scar on my knuckle from something or other......I forget.
