Quarters in a Time Capsule

Walking the boardwalk i was instantly transported back to 7 years ago when i last was with my family at the beach. How much things have changed. Yet somethings have not. The wonderful store Only Yesterday stands true to its name, selling all sorts of magazines, comic books and little knickknacks from yesteryear. The two amusment parks, Wonderland and Castaway Cove, still have many of the same rides i remember going on as a kid. Me and my brother have already decided we're going to ride the gravitron just for old times sake (to which my mother rolled her eyes). And oh the classic Jilly's Arcade. Many hours of fun were had in there. The boardwalk brags of many arcades yet none have the selection of Jilly's. The games that alway got me were the pinball games. With a fistful of quarters, my brother and i roam free to play whatever our hearts desire and our pockets can afford. Some games are new. Some i remember seeing long ago. The reason i love the pinball games so much is because to me there is no other game that provides such a wonderful time for such a small price. Three balls for a quarter. My brother and i played House of the Dead for 50 cents each and were dead in 45 seconds. But a pinball game... well, you decide how long you can play. There is always a bit of luck to it but there is so much more skill needed than compared to say Tekken or Wave Runner. I think thats why i was always attracted to them. A game that could go on for as long as you want... if you were good enough. Walking up to my first pinball game in years, i put the quarter into the slot and the screen came to life. It was a LOTR pinball game. Very cool, i thought to myself. It was a newer one but obviously had a little bit of wear to it. Good.... not a maiden voyage. The flippers were smooth. Not much delay to them. The spring could have been a little tighter but nothing really to complain about. I pulled the lever back and let the ball soar. I flicked the flippers maybe a total of 5 times before i lost my ball. Damn... I must have lost my touch, i thought, though i never really had much skill to lose in the first place. Several games later i found i was humming the song Pinball Wizard by The Who to myself as i regained whatever touch i had lost. I also love how a pinball game can fit so many stories and smaller objectives into one game. In the Lord of the Rings game i was addicted to, i had to defeat a balrog, try to collect all the rings of men, dwarfs, and elves, light the palantir, collect 5,000 souls, and many other sub-quests, all while trying to secure a high score. Its just very entertaining to me. Walking away from the game i was challenged to two games of air hockey. The first was against my brother... which i lost.... badly. The next was against my mother, which i won. There was a rematch to both games to which the results were repeated. Its interesting to note though that my mother had beaten my brother on several occasions... so where did that place me? After two hours (it only felt like a half hour at the most), we left from the arcade. I smiled looking back. It was good to be a kid again.