The class knows the common answer: YES! To her
credit, my wife gave approval to the deal with area-
sonable "I just don't want to see any of them in the
house" type of comment. (Silly Girl!) The adrena-
line was really flowing now. It had rapidly transi-
tioned from "Can it happen?" to "Make it happen! "
I called Glenn and sealed the deal. It took me sev-
eral months to arrange the time off together with a
decent weather forecast for the four-day drive from
Los Angeles to Minnesota. That time came in
February of this year.
As late as the early 1970's, there was a discount
store chain in California called "Akron." From
what I can gather, they were similar to the Wal-Mart
of today. In addition to all the other stuff that Akron
carried, they imported and sold British coin-operat-
ed games, particularly during the Christmas season.
In 1973, Akron went bankrupt and all their stock
was sold. The gentleman who approached Jim in
his antique store in 2002 was the enterprising fellow
who, in 1973, went to the local Akron stores and
bought up all their British games. He squirreled
them away for the next 29 years. Jim and Glenn
purchased the lot from the fellow and I was the col-
lector who purchased the first game they listed on
Ebay, the Handan-Ni game "Multiball."
On a bright Monday morning, I flew into LAX
International, arriving at 9 AM. My truck rental
reservation was for 10 AM and I made it to the
Ryder garage 10 minutes early. I was at Glenn 's
I will be totally honest with you. I did not go to house by 10:45 AM. I thought I would be on the
Glenn's house intending to purchase this wonderful road headed home by Noon. After all, one would
hoard of games. For one thing, I was sure the price think that the process of loading 56 wall-hanging
would be outside my present ability. Secondly, I games into a 10' rental truck would be a piece of
was most happy just to be getting "Multiball." cake, wouldn't one? No, only if that person is over-
Third, my wife would divorce me. Last but not ly optimistic like I usually am. Glenn had previ-
least, I don't have that kind of vision. I'm much ously shrink-wrapped about a third of the games. It
more a "micro" as opposed to a "macro" kind of took us almost three hours to wrap and load those
guy. Imagine my surprise when, after a delicious and the remaining games. Glenn's wife Leslie had
dinner prepared by Qlenn's wife, Leslie, Jim said to prepared lunch for us and I wasn' t about to miss one
me, "Why don ' t you make us an offer for the lot?" of Leslie's delicious invitations. I was finally on the
I had written an appraisal, game by game but had
road by 3 PM. (See
not tallied the numbers. I knew that it would be too
photo D, Glenn ,
high. Sensing my hesitation , Jim added, "If you
Leslie and Oreo plus
could swing 50% of your appraisal , there would be
the "treasure." ) I
room for all of us to make money." Suddenly, the
made it to Las Vegas
numbers began dancing in my head. I said that I
( or as we aircrew
would seriously think about it and get back to them
call
it,
"Lost
within the week.
Wages") the first
night. My plan was
I think I flew back to Minneapolis from Los Angeles
PHOTOD
to
follow
1-15
the next morning but I'm not sure; I may have float- Northeast to the juncture of
1-15/1-70 where I
ed. The vision of all these British games kept swim- would turn eastward over the Rockies on 1-70. I
ming in front of my eyes like a candy carousel that would join 1-76 at Denver and then connect with 1-
would not go away. I knew that the offer presented 35 north to Minneapolis. It looked great on paper
to me was an honest "once in a lifetime" opportuni- and I had the blessing of MapQuest. The one wild
ty. Could I actually do this? Doesn' t every red- card was the weather.
blooded collector live for this type of chance?
Doesn' t the size of the challenge inspire even I'm very sensitive to weather. As an airline pilot,
greater deeds? Why all the questions, Professor? the vast majority of my "combat" stories center
7