Pinball wizard

Whenever I am visiting an establishment with with a pinball machine I will tell whoever is with me, "I have to let you know, I'm a bit of a pinball wizard." They usually don't believe me until they witness their turn lasting 30 seconds and my at bat lasting 10 minutes. I love it. Whenever I list out every goal I have (Which isn't that often) owning my own pinball machine comes up. I even have a left wrist that hurst when I play and when the pain acts up and I'm in one of life's random circumstances I will tell people I have an old pinball injury.

I have a memory of my Dad kissing my mom when I was 4. "My Dad loves my mom." I thought. This feels right. Looking at my parents through the eyes of that boy and seeing them happy with each other reminds me that it made me feel good. I'm just consciously making the decision right now to be affectionate with my wife in front of the kids. It's nice for her, it's nice for the kids, and everyone is happy.

My next memory is them arguing. Not good, probably the opposite feeling of the kiss.

Next memory is the story I got about how dad has to leave for a while. I remember they gave me some story that seemed like he was going on a long vacation. I later learned that another word for vacation is divorce.

We lived in Southern California and now he lived in Sacramento. I got to visit during the summer, Easter, and Thanksgiving. I loved it. And you know what one of my favorite things about my Dad's house was? Besides the large jar of M&M's. The pinball machine.

The name of the game was paragon. To this day it's probably one of my favorite pinball games. When I was making money years ago I was looking on the internet for one and when I make money in the future I'll buy one.

I remember one time I came to my dad's house and there was a big hole in the wall next to the pinball machine. His friends would get mad every time they lost the ball. I do the same thing to this day when I play any video games. My dad eventually bought on of those blow up punching things that you can hit and they bounce to the ground and back up. There's no way that punching that thing could bring anywhere near the satisfaction of putting your fist in the wall.

Why do men like to put their fist through the wall. So much anger and no where to release it I guess. God knows I have stuffed up anger in me. I learned the game of paragon and became great at it.

My dad passed away and the game was shipped to my home in Southern California. I mastered it, I flipped it, and then I stopped playing it. We put it in the garage and when I was 19 my friends burned down my house with a cigarette. The game was gone with many other things.

To this day I have to play pinball whenever I'm in a pizza joint and I love it.