Today I drove past the old Woodside Roller Rink in Honey Grove, PA. The owner was out mowing grass. It's been a few yrs since I saw him last. I stopped in and we shot the shit for an hr or so. The roller rink has been shut down for a few years now and the owner told me he wanted to re-open it someday. It needs quite a bit of work done to it. The last time I was there he had the following games: Ms. Pac, Outrun, Gate of Doom, Tapper (with great great side art), Robocop, Asteroids Deluxe and a converted Aliens. The pinballs he has in there are: Flip Flop, Captain Fantastic, Meteor, Stellar Wars, Jungle Lord and one of the baseball pitch and bat games. He also has 2 pool tables and a skill claw machine. The floor of the skating rink needs some work .. but all the old strobe lights are still in tact. The room where the skates are stored needs rebuilt as well as the outside porch with a new roof addition is needed. Anyway's . . I have been asking for a while now if he would be interested in selling any of the games. I asked him again today and he told me he isn't ready to sell any games as of yet because if he re-opens, he wants all the games in there so the kids can play, but if he doesn't re-open he will sell me any or all the games in there. I then asked him if I could go in and see the games again.. so we walked in and he turned the lights on. Only half came on so it was hard to see in the dark. We plugged Gate of Doom in and it came right on. Awesome!! Then we walked over to the wall that had the skill crane, Outrun and Ms. Pac. He handed me the cord to Ms. Pac but it ended up being the skill crane. hehe!
Finally we hooked both Outrun and Ms Pac up. Both came on.. Outrun played blind.. but then the monitor came on but was all over the place. Told him I thought it just needed adjusted. Finally .. Ms. Pac came on. It fired right up. After sitting for over a year if not longer, it fired right up like it came right from the factory! It was an awesome feeling and sight. We added 2 credits and I played away for a few minutes before we walked around looking at the rest of the roller rink. He then told me that his retirement plan was to have the roller rink up and running 7 days a week, all day long. Since it was paid for already, he didn't care if he made 50 dollars or no dollars. He just wanted to see it up again. I told him that one of my dreams was to own any of the roller rink games for nostalgic memories. He smiled to me and promised I would get one of the games outta there someday. We drank a coke and locked it up for this week. He goes there every 2 weeks to mow the grass.. so I told him if he needed any help with getting it back up and running let me know. We agreed that from now on when he's over there, I will call and meet him there. While he mows, I will go around cleaning the games up.. turning them all on and playing them to make sure they work or if one doesn't work.. have his guy come fix them while I'm there. It was just an awesome feeling to see the games again. Here is a link to the pictures I took years ago when it was still up and running. Everything looks the same now, except for all the dust!! http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/278525663FkPNGk?start=24


