C.O.C.A. Times

PINSTORY
by Tom and Penny Taylor
It all started because my older brother didn ' t want to
baby-sit me. Growing up in Milwaukee in the early
60's, pinball was second nature. With a bar on every
corner and a bowling alley on every other corner,
life was good. He was 16 and I was 6. The last
thing my brother wanted was little me tagging
along. The solution was simple: we would go to the
neighborhood bowling alley, he would give me a
handful of dimes, ditch me in the game room and
bowl with hi s friends. There I was, perched on a bar
stool with my arms outstretched as far as they would
go to reach the flipper buttons, playing pinball for
hours. It was destiny that my Mom named me
Tommy.
For the next 12 years, my purpose in life was to find
the game room at every lodge, park or campsite
where the family vacationed. It is amazing how
many of those places and games I remember. Then
it was off to college, where my minor was pinball.
It didn't help land my first job, but it sure gave me
a well-rounded education. Shortly after that it was
wedding bells and the thought of never playing pin-
ball again. Fortunately, the resort where we honey-
mooned had a game room, and despite a childhood
of being told that "skill at pinball is a sign of a mis-
spent youth," Penny became hooked on the silver
ball. A brand new Williams Firepower was my
accomplice (one of which now resides in our living
room). At last, there was hope, and three months
later I answered an ad in the paper and became the
proud owner of a non-working Gottlieb Card Trix
machine. Never mind that the $140 I paid for the
11
machine was for groceries, gas and a haircut. I was
willing to go hungry, walk more and look a little
shaggy to finally have a machine.
An artist by nature, my wife meticulously cleaned
everything on the playfield to a brand-new shine.
Meanwhile, I learned to decipher a schematic. It
took us three weeks to get the game to work, but it
was fun and worth the effort. We still have this
game!
In the 20+ years since that first game, we have
owned close to 500 machines and currently have
about 150. Over that time we have also dabbled in a
couple of jukeboxes, slots, trade stimulators and
four kids. We have added a number of arcade games
to the collection, too. We have tried to obtain an
example of every Gottlieb wedgehead produced
between 1960 and 1978, and now hope to find the
time to restore them all. The annual Pinball Expo in
Chicago has been a great source of games and new
friends. We have attended all 19 shows and exhib-
ited since 1992. In 2002 we were able to move into
a new building and finally bring all the games
together in one place (they had been stored at five
different locations---friends' and relatives ' homes,
storage sheds and a rented basement). We will prob-
ably spend the next 10 years restoring them all, but
I can ' t think of a better way to enjoy this great coin-
op hobby. I like to tell people that pinball machines
are like potato chips: you can ' t stop with just one!
We hope yo u enjoy the accompanying pictures. We
can be reached at thomastaylor@ameritech.net.