The End of an Era

My daughter graduated from college last weekend, which means one thing: I won't be going to Pizza House to play pinball any time soon.

Graduation Weekend was hectic, as we should have expected. A bunch of plans (cleaning the house, making gift bags for the family, etc.) came off a little half-baked. Family members cancelled (my brother, somewhat predictably), did stupid-ass shit (my father-in-law, who had my bro-in-law drive him 10 hours across the Midwest despite being sick, which made him more sick, so he spent the weekend in a hospital with pneumonia), and did stupid-ass shit that cost us money (my goofy sister-in-law, who ignored all the emails, Facebook posts and phone messages about the plane ticket my wife bought for her and purchased her own, which we only found out about the day before she left, by which time it was too late so we ended up donating $300 to the Richard Branson Naked Supermodel Water Skiing Fund). But Zoe Entropy did graduate (.02 grade points away from honors :( ) and moved out of her campus housing for the last time.

I didn't get to play any pinball during the weekend, but I had to drive the SUV up to pick up the last of her stuff on Monday, so I took the opportunity to make my last visit to Pizza House (at least for the foreseeable future). Happily, the high score that I set on NASCAR three years ago is still there. I put a dollar into Austin Powers and played four or five games until I was replay percentaged out. Then I put a dollar into NASCAR and played eight or nine games... every time it upped the replay beyond my score, I would match or get a special. I finally played my last two games and walked away, and as I opened the door I heard it match, but I kept walking. I kind of would have liked to go into town and play a game of The Champion Pub, but I had to get home.

I remember when I left school -- I remember it very well, since I did it three times in the 17 years it took me to get my Bachelor's degree -- and I felt the same wistfulness when I left Pizza House for the last time. Now granted, only a little of it was because of the pinball... Gettysburg College was this place I'd been coming to for four years, and now I was going to stop coming to it.

And THAT got me thinking about the time my Mom was at UCLA Medical Center about 8 years ago getting surgery for the cancer that eventually killed her. While she was under the knife, I got tired of waiting and took off, exploring the buildings that I'd attended class and goofed around in 20 years before. Of course I ended up at the arcade, a shadow of its former self but still with a couple of ratty old pins in the corner. There was a Getaway, maybe a South Park, and a few others that I don't remember. It was comforting to play pinball in a familiar surrounding.

I really don't know where this is going. Usually I can tie this all up with some kind of clever narrative thread, but I can't, so I'm just going to stop.

Well, enough of this. Next time I'm going to write about an actual useful electrical technique that I learned from my brother while he was here for the graduation (the reliable brother who actually showed up, of course).