Post #29

 


Oh boy, SO many memories of playing this bad boy!
The klassik KISS pinball machine. Never mind that it looked great and sounded great, but it was actually a really fun pinball machine to play. I'm not quite sure where I took this picture, perhaps at Seven C's variety store at the corner of Humphrey Street and Mountain Road, or maybe somewhere else. But at Seven C's, where my mom actually worked for awhile to try to support the family because we were so poor (with her best friend Anita), it's where I played it the most. There was a king's ransom of quarters that were dumped into this and many other pinball and video games back in the day. In fact, I got in a lot of trouble for being addicted to those things.
I had a paper route that I'd spend pretty well all of my money on arcade games. Back then, they were the equivalent of video games that you see today, except you had to pay to play each game. Sometimes I would collect paper money in advance from customers to feed my habit. I might not have been into drugs or alcohol, but arcades were my drug. That's not necessarily a good thing, either.
The way the story goes, I was so behind in paying the Transcript office the paper money I owed them, I'd wind up getting in trouble. Eventually I got hit by a car on that infamous night that John Lennon got shot, and it turned out to be a big reset for me. I was doing terrible in school, lonely as a daisy springing up from a sidewalk, had trouble keeping up with friends, and things just generally were bottoming out.
After I got home from being in the hospital for two weeks, it was time to pay the piper. The Transcript office found out I was collecting money in advance from customers, I was taken away from school thus avoiding Christmas exams - which turned out to be a good thing because I was failing, BADLY, and things just generally spiraled out of control. I came out of it eventually, but it seemed like it was forever. I'd even take quarters out of the church Lenten folder and replace them with nickels so I could get my arcade fix! Mom wasn't too pleased with that.
But, here we are today. Life is much, much better because of lessons learned from times like that in my youth.

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