GETTIN' AFTER IT. Local Charlie Schaefer reflects on his pinballery – a skillset honed in his later years ("In my youth, I was never a pinball wizard, but now? For the over-70 bracket? Just maybe!").

We take our 14-year-old grandson to Reboot Social, the local restaurant, bar and video/pinball arcade. I get $20 in tokens, some of which I pocket. I ignore the video games; old dogs should recognize their limitations. Instead, I try my hand at pinball even though it’s been over 50 years since I last played.

I leave “Scooby-Doo” alone, not seeing that as a fit subject for a pinball machine. I go with “Godzilla,” not because I love it but because it seems like an appropriate theme for pinballry. 

When I was young, I never did sink an awful lot of money into pinball, thinking there were better uses for my quarters. I developed no more than beginner proficiency; never becoming a pinball wizard. Although, I did do a little what we used to call “gunching” – shoving the machine with my hip in hopes of altering the course of the ball, staying just this side of tilting, of course.

Machines now may be too anchored to the floor to permit much gunching. But still, I view it as an essential feature of the process.

I find it hard to penetrate the premise of the game but I think that I’m supposed to be Godzilla. Not totally sure of that, but if I am, it taps a kernel of nihilism that I would prefer to ignore. According to the audio narrative, I “totally annihilated” the city. Not the sort of thing I generally do. It is accompanied by a video showing a cityscape in widespread conflagration. If I did that, I am really sorry (but I don’t think I had anything to do with it).

Like divine grace, an extra ball is granted through unmerited favor, determined by a higher wisdom obscured by clouds. In this case, I suspect that behind the clouds is an algorithm designed to maximize the likelihood that I will put two more tokens in the slot.

Two separate things going on here; how my game is going and an underdeveloped narrative of the behavior of a very large, mutated, malevolent reptile with Japanese characteristics. So be it. 

In my youth, I was never a pinball wizard, but now? For the over-70 bracket? Just maybe!

The ball comes barreling down at me, I whack it right back, my timing and dexterity as good as they ever were. The silver ball dribbles around my flipper; I wait 'til it is in just the place to send it streaking up to the top of the board. The machine throws me a ball on what appears to be a totally arbitrary basis. Despite my surprise, my flipper response is right. I got it.

Oh, now and then, one may slip past my flipper – that I would have caught had I been totally on top of my game – but just then, I got it.

Charlie Schaefer, pictured above, beams with pride alongside his winning score on the Godzilla-themed pinball machine at Reboot Social in downtown Eau Claire.

No way of telling my skill level from the machine’s numbers. There has been point inflation since I last played. High hundreds of thousands and then millions, all out of proportion to my modest endeavors.  If the numbers got bigger because of something I did, they did so for reasons I cannot discern.

I get bonus balls but they are dispensed by some kind of ersatz secular grace. Like divine grace, an extra ball is granted through unmerited favor, determined by a higher wisdom obscured by clouds. In this case, I suspect that behind the clouds is an algorithm designed to maximize the likelihood that I will put two more tokens in the slot.

Although I am on to the knavish schemes of the algorithm, with the reptile part of the brain (perhaps in solidarity with “Godzilla”), I dig out the tokens from my pocket to play again.