What I Learned From Pinball.

My son plays a lot of video games. If I’m honest about it, it bothers me. What a waste of time, right?

But if I’m honest with myself, I got to admit: I played a lot of video games, too. Back then, they were called “pinball machines.” Was playing pinball a waste of my own fleeting childhood?

I’m going to have to think about that...

Summer. Around 1975. I was ten years old. Mom and dad worked, so I was on my own from breakfast to dinner. Some of those days, I swear, Mark Twain could have followed us around and learned a thing or two about being boys. Me and my best friend, James, we’d just go. Remember that? When kids could just go?

We climbed telephone poles and sat in the crow’s nest, our legs dangling over the edges, debating the big issues of our day (who would win in a fight, Hulk or Thor, New Avengers or Old Avengers, and don’t get us started on who is faster, Superman or Flash?). The wires just inches above our heads, humming. God, we felt plugged into something.

We raced everywhere. I mean, we’d just be walking along when suddenly one of us yelled, “Race to the post office!” or “Race to the old oak!” No ready, set, go. No plan. Just a shout and bang! you were running, that wild, rubber boned running, James hooting the whole way, whooping like Woody Woodpecker because he knew it drove me crazy.

We unrolled sleeping bags in backyards and on front porches and even up on rooftops. It took a long time to fall asleep, face to face with the Milky Way. In those days, when you looked up, you saw heaven. Stars round the rim of the world.

That summer we pitched our first tent in the woods. In the wilderness! Was that a squirrel on a dry branch or the footstep of a stranger? Were those pine needles rubbing their hands in the breeze or bears sniffing at the flap? Can crickets really make that much noise? Can moonlight really shine that bright? What was that shadow on the tent wall?

We jangled up our nerves until we ripped out of there, running with true terror and pure joy choking our hearts, leaving tent, sleeping bags, comic books and food behind until morning.

How many times that summer did we sit in the cool dark of the Pacific Theater? How many matinees? Boy oh boy, I remember watching Jaws, screaming and laughing and spilling our Cokes, then running through the woods, down to Silver Lake, sitting in our trunks on the diving rock, afraid for the first time in our lives to jump in. I can still hear James shouting, “This is so stupid!” The echoes of our laughter came back over the lake, sounding hollow like the men we would become if we weren’t careful.

I can see it like looking through a window: we just sat there, staring down at the dark water until the sun gave up on us and went looking for braver kids on the other side of the world. We walked home in the dusk, not saying a word. Happy. Just plain ol’ happy.

And on top of all that, we played pinball. Every chance we got.

Back then, Star Bowling Lanes was on Santa Monica Ave. I can still see it: lanes glowing in the dark, shelves notched with bowling balls, long tables crowded with high stools, ceiling lamps so dim their circles on the red carpet never touched, the shoe wall filled with row after row of numbered heels facing out (those big funky numbers, 3 to 15—who wore size 15?)

And over and under and through everything, those long, low rumbles, fading away from you, then suddenly breaking into claps of thunder. To this day, I love the sound of a bowling ball rolling to its fate.

The arcade wasn’t much. Just two pinball machines (Space Time and Monte Carlo), a claw machine and a gumball rack.

Of course, we had a ritual. Kids always do.

First, we hesitated a few seconds, standing respectfully in front of Space Time. We tried to stare it down, tell it telepathically that we were here to PLAY. The machine stared right back, the Time Traveler dressed in green, smiling over his shoulder as he tumbled into the vortex of past, present and future.

Next, the quarter. We always came with just one quarter, and we were lucky to get that. One precious chance.

In other words, we brought everything we had into that bowling alley. That’s sacred stuff, whether in prayer or pinball.

I rubbed the quarter between my fingers, then handed it to James. He spun the coin as it fell into the slot, putting his whole body into the action. We acted as if the quarter itself was magical, as if the contest began long before the game started.

And why not? When everything is at stake, everything matters. The entire day was on the line. We could turn that one quarter into a replay, maybe two, maybe a run. We could win the afternoon for ourselves. Heat and boredom vanquished outside!

That’s big stuff.

I remember my heart beating faster and faster as our score climbed. I remember hoping, really hoping, for just one more game. I remember the high fives when we won, James taunting the machine with every name he picked up on the playground.

And I remember the canyon when we lost, James cursing the machine with every insult he could improvise. Shakespeare would have been impressed.

Maybe I’m reading too much into all this, but I think we actually learned about life. From a pinball machine. Right there in Star Lanes.

On days when we won too easily, we learned how happiness could turn to boredom. On days we lost too quickly, we learned how to leave; hanging around sadness was like standing in quicksand.

What else? Friendship. We learned about friendship.

Sometimes, when the game was on the line, when everything was on the line, 5,000 points for a replay, down to our 5th and last ball, I would turn to James and say, “Want to take this one?”

He’d look at me and nod with a shrug as if it didn’t matter to him. Sometimes he’d have that 5th ball balanced on a flipper, ready to hit the flashing 3D tunnel for a replay, and he’d say, “You want to do it?” And I’d nod with a shrug as if I could take it or leave it.

Now that’s friendship. When you’re willing to step back and let your friend save the day, you know all you need to know.

So was pinball a waste of my childhood hours? No, I don’t think so. Maybe it’s not what you play, but how you play and who you play with.

I guess that’s my problem with Chip’s video games. Half the time, it’s just him and the computer or him and the phone. He doesn’t have to become more human because he’s playing a machine. It’s just not the same.

Is that a fair assessment? I honestly don’t know. But that’s how I honestly feel.

​Being a dad is hard work.

Comments

Media Jean: Wow, pinball meant a lot more to your dad than video games mean to me.

Chip: Yeah. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was making all that up.

Media Jean: I’m kinda jealous. Maybe we should try pinball.

Chip: I’ll download a pinball app to my phone. Here’s one called Old Time Pinball.

Media Jean: Got it! Look, we can play together online, just like your dad and James. Ready?

Chip: First ball. These flippers are cool.

Media Jean: I like the bumpers. Look at that ball go!

Chip: Oops, down the gutter. Second ball.

Media Jean: See that popup? We need a million points for a replay!

Chip: Watch out! Left gutter, left gutter!

Media Jean: Let me try. Here we go—whoa! That was fast! Down the right gutter!

Chip: Try another one.

Media Jean: OK, here we—rats! Right down the middle! What’s so great about this?

Chip: We still need 698,000 for a replay.

Media Jean: Ha! Peanuts. Look, Extra Ball is lit! Get it! Watch out—rats! Down the middle again!

Chip: Game over. Want to play again? We could turn on Easy Mode.

Media Jean: That’s okay. Pinball is kind of boring.

Chip: Yeah. I’m not sure what my dad saw in it.

Media Jean: Grown ups. They think everything that happened to them means more than anything that happens to us.

Chip: Well, at least we gave it an honest try.

Media Jean: That’s true! One thing about us, we always keep an open mind. What’s your dad doing now?

Chip: He’s writing in his gratitude journal.

Media Jean: I’ll come over and show him a better way to do that.

Chip: See you in a minute!

Comic strip from the series "The Gratitude Journal"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood)

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