Your authors, Don Caldwell and Mark Bakula, first met a long time ago- a couple of decades ago, to be precise. In the spring of 1985, Snap-on Tools in Kenosha, Wisconsin hired Don to work as a design engineer in the hand tools group. A few days into the job, Don was having trouble concentrating due to a loud and somewhat obnoxious engineer inhabiting a cubicle down the row. On that fateful day the loud engineer in question popped into Don’s cubicle with a boisterous “Hey buddy!” followed by: “How would you like to work on a project with me?” The loud engineer in question was Mark, a senior engineer in search of additional sacrificial bodies to try and rescue a twice-abandoned, career-busting project (a high-end ratcheting screwdriver). Don made a critical error in the heat of the moment and accepted the “opportunity” to work on this high visibility, high-risk project.

And so a long-term friendship was born. Mark taught Don about “Snap-on time” and “funtime.” Don taught Mark to write and spell. Mark and Don visited the home of Snap-on’s Electrical Engineering manager and saw a very nice game room- with a Wurlitzer 1015, a ball bowler, a gun game and…..pinballs! This got Mark excited about digging out the Flipper Clown pin he had obtained from his “fraternity” (drunken college buddies) in 1973.

With a little help from said electrical engineering manager and phone calls to Mr. Steve Young, the Clown started to come back to life. Don started to show some interest in the pinball, so Mark started cold calling “Amusement Operators” out of the Yellow Pages. This scared up a Close Encounters and a Surfers.

Next up was an operator near Madison, Wisconsin, who claimed to have a large pole barn full of all kinds of arcade goodies. So on a Saturday morning in a near-whiteout blizzard, Mark, Don and a kid from Mark’s neighborhood (he looked like he would be a good snow-shoveler and car-pusher) set out to see what this guy had to offer. When we got there we discovered: 1) a very large pole barn; 2) as the door opened, a sea of arcade games; 3) no lights in the building; 4) everything so tightly packed the only way to check them out was to climb up on top! We were hooked.

Immediately the two engineers started (over) planning their next trip- it would be only slightly less involved than the D-Day storming of the beaches of Normandy. When word got out, we picked up a few more interested parties that wanted to join in on the fun. So a series of lunchtime meetings over the next few weeks took created the ultimate plan.

The plan included:

• A rental truck
• Battery powered impact wrenches for leg and head bolts
• Miscellaneous tools (plus some for bribing the operator)
• Saw horses for leg removal
• Plastic bags for balls and loose parts
• Marking pens
• Blankets
• Ropes
• Food and drinks
• A schedule, maps, and rules for splitting up the booty

When the day arrived, a caravan of about eight vehicles traveled for over an hour to reach our goal. Weather was cold but dry. First order of business was to review the rules, schedule and work assignments. All pins were $100.00 each “as is.” Before we could get in, things had to come out. Games, pool tables, dart machines, cigarette vendors all came out to clear a path to the gold. Once that was done, everyone raced around the building pointing and shouting out the names of games. All the items were dusty and liberally sprinkled with bird and bat droppings (yes, there is a difference). In an hour, everyone had determined what would be dug out and the hauling began. An assembly line formed to create a line of pins with coin doors to the sky, heads in front, legs bundled and small parts bagged. The picking order was run through until all were claimed and the packing began. The vehicles were loaded to their maximums and the operator stood before us, his hand out. We filled the hand with cash and headed out into to the Wisconsin winter afternoon and our new obsession.

PS: The ratcheting screwdriver was, and still is, one of Snap-on Tools’ most successful and profitable products, still in the product line twenty years later. You have to pay for those games somehow!

Articles Mark has written (and Don has edited):