Bally Hole
In our mid teens, my best friend Todd Troughton and I would play a gambling slash Bingo slash Pin Ball machine called Bally Hole. The machines were manufactured by the Bally company, as in Bally’s Grand Casinos. We had a few places that sported the dime swallowing machines in our little town. Remarkably, they all “paid out” , even to youngsters like us, and even though it was against the law! Our main hangout was a liquor store that sat conspicuously across from the prestigious Country Club. Goodins Liquor store was a Jefferson City landmark. I think I could write an entire book about the times we spent at Goodins. Many times during our unforgiving Mid-Missouri summers, we put in some 40 hour weeks at Goodins. These were the greatest times of my life. Goodins was a liquor store built in the late 50’s or early 60’s. It was outfitted with a dirty beige tile floor and harbored hard liquor pints and fifths behind the register area. The standup, glass door coolers lined the back wall and were stocked full of 12-packs and cases of beer. The main part of the store had three or four isles. A few were filled with every possible type of wine and additional liquor items, one row was filled with nasty magazines. Squeezed amongst all of this societal evil were groceries and sundries. In the back corner, sat the trusty Bally Hole machine. It was the Beach Time model with yellow and red roll-overs, Bally Hole, four corners and the like.

The store sat on a highly traveled, sloped, potato gravel lot, and sported a tavern around back in the lower level. Now that I look back, I believe there were hookers down in that dugeon. Up in the bowels of the store, we would obtain a roll or two of ten cent pieces from the clerk on duty, buy our favorite beverage, I think mine was Diet Pepsi at the time and a fresh pack of whatever we were hooked on. My blend was either Salem or Winston. Many times I would buy the 2 for 1 special... merits, camels—it didn’t matter too much actually. Once we were set with all our necessities back at the machine, we would establish the rules for the day. Either each player would play his complete turn or we would alternate. I would do two balls, Todd would do the next two and so on. Over time, we became as fluid as two baseball veterans who had played together for years. We never squabbled over who’s turn it was. Sometimes our talent, feel, and respect for the game and each other allowed us to make "out of turn" calls, and request the other to step up and bat cleanup. If there had ever been a national Bally Hole championship, I am certain we would have been battling for the number one spot, we were solid! Except for the occasional clang of the cow bell that hung on the old liquor store door, signally another laborer was heading in for his daily bibe, or a sweaty keg barrel being hand trucked to the front, we stayed focused on the task at hand--beating this machine!

Dimes, dimes, and more dimes
The premise of the game was bingo. The playing surface had 25 holes and bumper cushions -- no flippers. The backboard had moving corners and a magic "F" line. Each segment twirled in place, keeping the number placement varied on the board. You could hit a 3, 4, or 5 in a row, or the elusive 4 corners and rack up games. From your surplus of games, you simply pressed the start button to play again, and kept pushing the button to hike up the odds. When your games were diminished you could keep entering dimes into the slot to jump the odds up further too. Not every push of the button or inserted dime would prompt the odds to move. In fact, sometimes you might drop 30 dimes without the odds moving past their stubborn, average holding point. Then you would be faced with the decision—to drop more dimes, or to go ahead and hopefully, with masterful skill, recoup what you had already invested. It fell in to the, “you have to spend money, to make money” area. Finally, the decision was made between the players -- Enough!

Okay, okay, maybe 10 more…..chunk went the dimes down the mechanical esophagus ….

chinka,chinka, whirrrrrrr, click!
chinka,chinka, whirrrrrrr, click!
chinka,chinka, whirrrrrrr, click!

Damn, the odds are still not budging.

chinka,chinka, whirrrrrrr, chic,chic,chic!

Finally the yellow odds crept forward one more notch, creating one of the grandest sounds the machine could produce. Now we were set to draw the plunger and send the first ball in motion. There really was no pressure on your first ball. Whatever hole/number the ball landed, the player could work from there with ball placement and bumping skills on the next turn. Most of the machines that we played were somewhat aged and weathered, maybe in their mid twenties. Over time, they became more forgiving as we would shake, bounce, and bump the crap out of the case attempting to coach the silver sphere in to a specific hole. A novice would simply enter a dime or two in to the machine, and plunge their 5 balls--hoping that at least three balls would end up, lit up, in a row for a win, like bingo. All luck. Well, I am here to tell you we seldom rolled on luck. We developed and honed some unbelievable bumping skills. Of course the goal was not to tilt the machine. A tilt would end your round abruptly. You can imagine the nerve racking balance between five bucks of dimes we had entered for a single game versus the level you were willing to bump and slide the machine. When the dime collector was in to collect the machine's bounty and clean and repair as needed, we were forced to take a rest from the game. Todd and I would try to persuade him that the machine was tilting too easily, hoping he would adjust the mechanism accordingly and make it an even easier game for us. But sometimes we would come in and notice new bumpers, a cleaned glass, and the machine would tilt on a sneeze. Even so, we would pull out our mastery, get in the zone and rack up the games.

Peenay
Don't get me wrong, with any gambling venture, there were probably more than an equal number of times we left dejected and empty handed. There were no bad days though, even when we lost our shirts. A fitting bumper sticker may have read, "A bad day at Bally, is better than....", you get the point. Being young teens in the nineteen seventies, we didn't have much cash. When we were totally void of any pocket change, we would go and collect glass soda bottles along the country roads near the club. Then we would turn them in for a ten cent ransom. All we needed was one dime. One dime could change the day from a typical, hazy summer day to a full day of indulgence and pleasure in the air conditioned liquor store. This method seldom produced, but when it did, it was one of the most fulfilling feelings we could gain from our experiences at the machine. We spent hours upon hours at this nurturing machine. It was our home machine. Our friends wanted to be a part of the Bally experience, but seldom did they stay long or rise to our playing level. We did have an equal counter part who played the game well. His name was Gary Wilson. We affectionately traded the name "Peenay" (Pee-Nay) amonst all of us. It was short for Penis, and I am not all too certain how it came about. It became endearing verbiage as we played our game. Sometimes we would hit a miraculous 17 for a coveted five in a row and simply state--Peenay! If you have ever seen the show South Park, it was just like saying "Timmy" (Tim-May). It was a downer when we would stroll in to Goodins and there sat Gary back at the machine. That meant he would be awhile, as he had some fairly decent skills. And every so often, we would go in for our fix and a stranger would be plopped on the old stool, plunging balls. We would check and see how many dimes he had and if he was any good. With Gary or a stranger, some times we would stay and watch and wait for our turn, other times we would head to another Bally establishment to play.

Horsearms
I wish I knew where that machine is now, I would buy it on the spot. It could be in a collectors basement, or the Cole county dump, who knows. One of the greatest features of the machine was the glass top. Here you could drop your cigarette from your mouth during a critical bump and grind session. The cigarette would conveniently land on the glass, and naturally roll the slope of the machine, to the metal band on top. Nothing to catch fire or burn, and when you were done with that roll, you would pick up your smoke and start where you left off, tugging on the butt. Another unique feature this particular machine had was the ability to start a game with a good whack from a soup can or a sideways fist. I'm not kidding! It was great! It came about one day, when a crooked dime was jammed in the slot. Naturally, you hit the machine to nudge it along. Well, we found that by hitting the face of the machine with our fist that it triggered the start of a game. You could even continue the beating to get the odds higher. This was not a panacea. There were some drawbacks. One, it was noisy. Two, it made the side of your hand extremely sore (thats when a can of corn was introduced to do the deed). And last, the pounding could sometimes tilt the machine. This pretty much eliminated the need to scour the grounds for pop bottles. If I had to weigh the morality of the issues at hand, I would think about the same as we did back then. We were basically stealing games from an illegal gambling machine that was servicing minors. Nuff said! It didn't weigh too much on our conscience. I suppose it would be like stealing some weed from your drug dealer or something like that. This was not our only immoral trickery we did with this great machine. There was a clerk at Goodins who went by the name of "HorseArms". Well she got the name from us due to the hairy nature of her arms. In addition, she had some mighty goggle eyes and had some form of mental disorder. Needless to say, as yound smart ass teens, we were fairly harsh on her and her appearances. I will ask at this time, "God, forgive us"! Eventually she was found to be a nice enough person. Since Horsearms had a few deficiencies to details, we had a wonderful scam going. After we would rack up maybe three or four hundred games, we would cash in. Each game was worth ten cents, of course, so we might cash in for thirty or forty dollars. The process included us walking to the front counter to get the clerk on duty, usually Horsearms. She would come back and verify the quantity of games on the machine, then flip the reset switch on the belly of the machine and the games would rapidly disappear. We then would go with her to get our earnings. Over time, she became comfortable and allowed us to wipe the games. Enter teen inginuity. Todd or I would make the motion to flip the switch on the underside. The other partner would be off to the side of the machine and start making clicking sounds and tap on the machine to mimic the sounds of the games getting counted down. This was done as the other person and Horsearms were on the way to the front. This effort, bundled with the prowess of Horsearms, allowed the games to remain on the machine. Now we had cash in our pockets, and a ton of free games to go back and play for the rest of the day.

Give me a special!
This was the voice we heard behind the counter at another “Ballyhole” hangout called Little Nell’s. I mean, come on—Little Nell’s!? What a great name. What was so choice about this 50’s era diner was how authentic it was without effort. Little Nell’s was a double-wide sized, greasy spoon nestled on the outside of the Missouri River bottoms, just a few blocks from the state capitol building. Inside Nell’s was an “L” shaped counter and the typical chrome swivel stools handsomely adorned with the tight, shiny red vinyl seats that spin and spin. The scuffed Formica counter had all the essentials, salt and pepper shakers, glass sugar dispenser, napkins, catsup and so forth. Then there were a few sit down booths along the outer wall. Lastly, the lobby had the similar dirtied beige tiled floor, a coat rack, and the standard issue penny gumball machines placed there by the shriners. Nell's paid out to minors also and they served pretty great food now I think back, so this was our second bally hangout during our high school years. The machine was just slightly different than the one at Goodins, I forget the name, maybe Cypress Gardens or maybe the same machine just built in a different year. For all intense purposes it was the same. I remember vividly when school would get closed early for snow or be closed the night before; it was a guaranteed bally day. Many of the teens that I ran around with had tanks for cars and some mad winter weather driving skills. As soon as the call was made to close schools, our plans for Bally started. I drove the Ford Galaxy 500 on many occasions to pick up the guys and be the designated driver. Often, during severe weather, Goodins would be closed, so by default, we would just head down to Little Nell’s where we would find the diner comfortably packed with patrons. The proprietors always kept rolls of dimes just for us. Another perk was their daily special which I believe was a cheeseburger and fries. Very good food! "Give me a special" and "special up" were heard all day long as we sat in our own little world of gambling desires.