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| - I found Pinball Hall of Fame when they were over at Tropicana and Pecos, next to the Dollar Theater. I asked how Tim started. He humbly and comically replied, "with one machine." He started collecting machines when he was seventeen. I believe he is a bit under sixty right now and has over 4000 machines and promotes events such as Pinsburg in Pennsylvania. He also donates almost all the proceeds from all of the pinball machines and the 25-cent popcorn machine to Salvation Army, some wish charities, and he has donated serious amounts, such as 100,000 to the Salvation Army and 10,000 to another.
Not only is his pinball hall of fame noble, but it is of utmost fun. He switches in between his 4000 machines to present about 100 at a time at his current location. The popcorn that he gets still comes from the dollar theater when they have leftover popcorn at the end of the night. There are still a couple of machines at that theater that I believe were donated to the theater.
Machines range from the wooden ones that accept nickels to the newest ones based on comics and movies. I would tell you a secret to getting free plays, but then... that would be too generous. Sigh... this might already have you thinking...
Every once in a while, you'll hear a loud beep from some neighbor's or maybe your own machine, meaning that you've reached a high-enough score to get a replay. You can notice which machines are more popular by seeing how high the replay score is and how hard it is to score points to know which ones to continue to play.
They have air hockey in the back, air baseball, pacman, and some other old arcade favorites. They have some shooting games. Tim can be found usually with a light on his head and messy and long silver hair. I assure you, he is a nice man. He will warn people of making the game your last round around 11pm. If you have a quarter stuck or lose a game, let him know and he'll make it up for you on another machine.
I love how he started, with one machine... he shared his passion with us, and now... we have Pinball Hall of Fame, where kids can innocently talk about fresh rubber, lube, and balls. Be a player.
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