Play Meter

FROM THE EDITOR we are really a lucky group! Valerie Cognevich Editor PLAY METER I'm either the luckiest or the unluckiest person you've ever met. In the past several months I've been besieged by incidents that were terribly unlucky. But, on the other hand, I could consider myself lucky because things could have been a whole lot worse. Here 's what happened: A girl pulled out in front of my daughter Becki as she was driving down the highway, causing an accident. Of course, the girl had no license , no insurance, was pregnant (and really was barefootl , and was driving someone else's car. Becki had $5,000 damage on her brand new car. But for the lucky part: she was wearing her seatbelt and came through it perfectly alright, other than being downright mad. My other daughter Mindy was driving her two young cousins to swimming lessons when a guy ran a red light, causing her to plow into him . Her Blazer suffered severe injuries, but luckily everyone was wearing seatbelts and was not hurt. Next, my "handyman " husband was welding something on' his brother's truck, when the hose from the welding tank caught on fire . He quickly thought to shove the tank off the truck. It fell off the truck all right, but it landed under it, still spewing fire. After the four fire trucks and an assortment of officials left, he could only say how lucky it was that no one was hurt. No, I'm not finished yet! The very next weekend I was peacefully watching "Rescue 911 " in my favorite comfy chair when suddenly there was an 10 Oldsmobile in the room . A neighbor lost control of her car, hit a classic Corvette in the driveway , and careened through my house . Her car picked up a very heavy pool table and it acted like a bulldozer, destroying everything in its path. There was only one spot in the whole room not destroyed-the chair where I was sitting! Well , am I the luckiest person you know? In looking back on the events, I can only say that I wouldn't have had it any other way if these things had to happen . Everyone's OK; now all we have to do is deal with insurance companies. Now that really is an unlucky thing to have to do! If we look back on past events within our beloved coin-op industry, we can describe episodes that seemed like disasters, yet we have emerged with only minor injuries. Do you remember when the bingo machines were banned? Now that seemed to spell the demis e of the industry. Not so, though. How about when pinball games were declared "gambling" devices and put out to pasture . It was time for the industry to band together and fight it. And fight they did. In a short 10 years the industry has been at an all-time high and an all-time low, yet still survived. It's taken dedicated people to resuscitate the industry. But there's always been someone willing to live up to the challenge . Those that don 't, well, we don 't really need them anyway, do we? We've been lucky to be a part of such a vital, interesting industry. We attend trade shows, talk with fellow industry veterans, view the stimulating equipment, and feel renewed. We may grumble and complain when "someone runs his car through our house " or "runs a red light" but after the dust has cleared, we see how truly lucky we are. D OCTOBER 1993