It’s Figure Friday, but this week I’ve decided to delve into toy-adjacent topics.
By this time tomorrow I’ll be the new steward of a pinball machine called…The Swinger.
Built in 1972 by Williams Electronic Games, Inc. of Chicago, Illinois, 3,229 of these machines were produced, and one of them in particular has spent the last 50 years in the utility closet at my parents’ house.
A couple of months ago, the water heater in that utility closet suffered a “one in a million” catastrophic failure and sent gallons of water shooting out of its side. Things got wet, the carpet got ruined, and the walls…also got ruined.
Insurance adjusters were called in, and my folks began the long and boring process of filing claims to have the damage repaired. I’ve personally had my fill of water and insurance adjusters over a decade ago now, and I do not envy anyone who has to jump through those hoops.
From that point on, hardly a week has gone by that didn’t see me bringing bags or boxes of stuff home from my parents’ house. Various antiques and other heirlooms were given to me in the interest of clearing space out of the room that was to be renovated.
At some point, I apparently agreed to take a couch and TV stand since I have a basement that’s largely empty. In conversation with my father, the subject of the pinball machine came up and was broached thusly…
“We’re going to have to figure out what to do with the pinball machine,” my dad said.
Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“We’ll have to see if we can sell it or give it away or something.”
“I… kind of always thought I’d get it one day. I thought this was going to be in your will.”
“If you want it, it’s yours,” he said. Now for the kicker: “I didn’t want to presume that you’d want it.”
I was honestly kind of floored in the moment. Who wouldn’t want their very own, full-size, vintage arcade machine? It’s one of those things that you automatically agree to and figure out the finer points when the dust has settled. If someone asks if you’re a god, you say “yes”. If someone asks if you want your own pinball machine, you say “yes”.
As I mentioned above, the machine has lived in my parents’ utility room since time immemorial. From grade school on, it was a neat party trick to have up my sleeve whenever a new friend came over to the house. You’d ask if they wanted to see something cool; they’d say that they would, you’d open a door to the pinball machine, they’d be relieved it wasn’t a dead body, they’d ask if they could play it, you’d say “no,” and then you’d go back to watching MTV or playing Nintendo.
If I knew how this machine came to be in my dad’s possession, I’d long since forgotten the story. It’s just one of those things that’s always been there. I’m unsure if my dad ran this purchase by my mom or if he just showed up with it one day, possibly sneaking it in the side door when she wasn’t looking, then acting as if the cacophony of chimes and flipper noises weren’t coming from the back of the house. I think I prefer the fiction to actually asking about how it came to be,
I have very foggy memories of my dad playing it in the years before my sister was born. I was too short at the time to play it myself, but I remember it as being fun. Eventually, my dad got an Atari (which I also now have), and I got a Nintendo, then a Genesis, then a PS1 and on and on and The Swinger just sat in the storeroom gathering dust.
The rubber bumpers have dry-rotted and need to be replaced, but the work is entirely manageable. It is now as I one day hope to be described, “In pretty decent shape for being 54 years old.”