Source: http://www.annarbor.com/news/ann-arbor-firefighters-battling-blaze-at-south-university-and-church/
And the place is being torn down:
Starting Saturday, traffic on South University Avenue will be restricted for the demolition of the former Pinball Pete’s building at 1217 S. Forest Street in Ann Arbor.
The building was destroyed by fire in October. Investigators deemed the blaze arson, and two men have since been charged.
It annoys me that this building is called the former Pinball Pete's. Yes, I worked for that place. But it will always be Flipper McGees. I played there, worked there, and managed the store. It is one of the reasons I like to quip that I loved being a college sophomore--it was the best three years of my life.
It wasn't really the best three years of my life. But I had a lot of fun then, and the worries and angst and disappointments fade away over time.
I got amazingly good at classic Asteroids there. I'd have audiences watching me, amazed that I'd play for hours without using the "lurker" strategy. I'd just go through rack after rack of rocks, sometimes blanking out as my ship went thruster-end into a swarm of rocks, and muscles took over from conscious thought. Sometimes I'd be told that I swiveled left and right in a blur of shots clearing my path while also taking out a small saucer at the far end of the screen with a single shot.
I was a captive audience for a local Marxist who'd always come in on my shift to debate the joys of communism with me before getting his tokens and playing games.
And I'll never forget the uncomfortable time when I was working, and a (mostly) ex-girl friend, a women and co-worker I'd soon be dating for a short time, and a women who'd become my girl friend some months later, were all perched at the ledge of my small cubicle overlooking the arcade. I don't remember the conversation topics, but I do remember desperately wanting to be elsewhere and hoping that nobody would say anything that would get me stabbed in the arm with a fork.
I worked in other arcades that were really seedy (Mickey Rats, The Cross-Eyed Moose, and Tommy's come to mind), but Flipper's was always a great place. Never once had a gun drawn on me or a knife pulled there. And nobody ever tried to sell drugs or assault teen girls there.
Good times. Good times.
But now, that monument to younger days will no longer stand on South University. My boyhood home burned down ages ago. If my fraternity isn't razed to the ground as a fire hazard, it probably should be. Now that I think about it, the dorm I lived in had a fairly serious fire while I lived there. But it didn't burn down.
Oh well. Like I said, those really weren't the best three years of my life. It is just a jest, poking fun at my failure to really apply myself then. I'm sure I drove some teaching assistants and profs up the wall (sorry Minerva). But to be fair, some of them really annoyed me, too.
Every year it seems like I get to update that actual time span of the best three years of my life. And I hope to keep doing that for decades to come, regardless of the path of destruction behind me that wipes away the visible markers of my life passing through the world.
