pinball in the house

Another reason why I love pinball.. Grew up with one in the house.  When I was probably 7-8 years old, beyond the fact that we had an atari 2600 and a vic-20 computer, my brother convinced my dad to buy a pinball machine.  Since we lived near chicago, there were plenty of places that sold old arcade equipment.  I'll never forget what that warehouse looked like, just rows and rows of video games, shuffle pucks, and pinball.  I remember my dad didn't want to spend too much money, but he didn't want to go too cheap and end up with a lemon.  He decided $400 was the most he was going to spend.  We decided on an evel knievel machine (because it ran).  I think we played it a few months before it started having problems.  I remember him having to replace some ROM chip on the motherboard quite a few times.  It would power on, but it wouldn't kick over, effectively making it in-operable.  After fixing it several times, and getting tired of having to do so, he finally gave up and ended up selling it.  Sorta wished he had kept it around, seeing how this pinball is worth a LOT more now that evel knievel is dead.  Everytime I play it (even in emulation) it still brings me back to being a little kid playing that in the basement.