Interesting short read from a while back...

[cormy]

Found this letter I wrote to a magazine quite a few years back, think it was called Gameroom, not sure if its still around. I guess they were asking you to write about your first introduction to the collecting area. Enjoy..

[HowDueYouDue]

Cool story. Always love reading about NJ

[Ltransam]

Very nice story  Wish I could remember what started me. What were we talking about lol  

[MoonDawg]

       Cool story and great descriptions.
      
       I managed to copy and paste it here:


        n-opName: C. McCormick
Case File:
Occupation: Environmental Health Specialist
1st Coin- op Add: William’s Aztec
1st Coin-op Owned: Coca-Cola WC-42T


My first exposure to the world of pinball started as a kid growing up in the mid 70’s and spending my summers at a place called Mountain Lake in Liberty Township, NJ. It had a beach and a two-car garage that was converted to an arcade. Some of the games I remember were the huge Crack Shot in the corner, Power Play pinball, Space Invaders, and the like. I would be there from morning, riding my bike home for dinner, and back in the evening. We treated that place like our own “ gameroom” and guarded our favorite machines when other kids would show up on the weekends and holidays. To this day whenever I hear the Eagles “ Life in the Fast Lane” I think of the bass banging out of the jukebox in the arcade (sorry I don’t know what model it was), this goes for “ The Devil Went Down to Georgia” also. One of the things I really remember was wanting to play other games, and riding across the lake to the other side to a beach casino. It was intimidating to go into the bar for us kids since the owner had a reputation for being nasty, so we would assemble out front until we had at least three of us and enter the dark smoky place were the usual assortment of people at the bar would barely notice us (we thought they were watching our every move) to the Aztec pinball next to the men’s room. This machine was our secret since we had the guts to go in to the place, we would play until the place started to fill up in the afternoon and owner would kick us out.

But like everybody else, my attentions were draw to other things later on; College, military and the like. While inspecting an Elks Club for work some years later, I noticed an old rusty Coca-Cola machine standing outside a garage. I don’t know what came over me, but I thought I was one of the coolest things I had ever seen and I could make it even cooler by fixing it up. A couple weeks later I bought the machine over a deal at the bar for $75 I think; the details are a bit fuzzy now. What I had was a Westinghouse WC-42T and immediately ripped the guts out of it to “lighten it up”. I had no idea what I was doing but something came over me while “restoring” it. I could not think of much else except what I was going to do next to the machine, I even left my friends wedding early to come home and work on the machine.

About ten years have passed since that first machine, and I now have several other soda machines, restoring them to mint condition. Each one has it’s story like the VMC 27 I found as the antique dealer was about to close his shop for good that day (ebay casualty) it was about the only thing left in the store, five minutes later and I would have missed it.

Or the excitement generated as the fax of a Pepsi VMC 81 comes through from a person wanting to sell his soda machine but not knowing what model he has and won’t take less than $250 for.

Which leads us back to the pinball. One day scanning the want ads for soda machines, I see an ad for 70’s pinball machines, a strange feeling goes through me, I make the call and yes, he has a Aztec machine for sale, the same night I go up to North Jersey and there it is, I can almost hear “ life in the fast lane” somewhere in the distance….

Needless to say I bought it and is the only pinball in my fledgling gameroom (I’m hoping to buy a couple more 70’s EM’s) right now I’m on a soda advertising sign kick. I still have that old Coca Cola WC-42T that started it all and it looks ok, from about 10 feet away, I can’t bring my self to get rid of it, I guess because it represents the first time I was bitten by the “ Coin - Op addiction” bug !!!.
 

        Now we should all submit our own stories in a new post.