SEEKING REDEMPTION AT JOE'S PLAYLAND

I feel sorry for all of the people who were eagerly awaiting Memorial Day weekend this year so they could enjoy some fun time at the beaches in this area. It seems as if the pandemic has made certain the word “fun,” especially when it comes to any beach, will have to be put on hold for a while longer.

I remember how often I used to go to the beach in my younger days – like every weekend, even during the winter months. That’s because the Midway Arcade and Joe’s Playland at Salisbury Beach were open year-round, so I was able to play my favorite arcade games whenever the mood struck. I’d also always make sure to stop by the candy shop there and stock up on some homemade fudge before I headed home.

I was in junior-high when I first started saving prize tickets from the arcades at Salisbury Beach. Back then, 500 tickets could be redeemed for a nice prize, like a radio or a gigantic stuffed animal. But I wanted to save for something even bigger and better, like a portable TV or a stereo. So I stashed away all of my tickets and never redeemed them. The more I collected, the bigger my prize fantasies became. I had visions of cashing in my tickets for something really spectacular in the future…like maybe a motorcycle or a diamond necklace, which I felt certain the managers would be willing to order especially for me because they’d be so impressed with the record-breaking number of tickets I’d amassed over the years.

I won most of my tickets playing skeeball, my favorite game. Later, I switched to a rather primitive poker-game machine. The object of the game was to roll five balls into holes that had pictures of cards on them to determine the poker hand. Usually, I was pretty lucky, but one day, I couldn’t win a hand no matter how hard I tried. Determined, I kept stuffing money into the machine.

“Um, how long have you been playing with only four balls?”  I heard a voice behind me ask. I turned around to see one of the arcade’s attendants standing there, chuckling. He checked the machine and found the fifth ball stuck up inside. I was so embarrassed for being too dumb to realize it, my face nearly burst into flames.

Fortunately, the guy took pity on me and let me play a bunch of games at no

charge to make up for my stupidity and his malfunctioning machine. I won about 200 tickets that day alone.

Later, the arcade installed real slot machines, which paid off in prize tokens that could be redeemed for tickets. I played those for hours, mainly because they required no skill whatsoever and therefore, spared me from any further humiliation.

Fast forward to 40 years later when I happened to find my stash of arcade tickets in the back of the kitchen cupboard. To be honest, I’d forgotten all about them by then, so it was like finding buried treasure…and I was excited. 

I was sitting at the kitchen table and carefully stacking the tickets into piles when my husband walked in and asked what I was doing.

“I have 5,581 tickets from Joe’s Playland at Salisbury Beach!” I said. “Do you think we can take a ride there sometime so I finally can trade them in for a prize?”

“Is the place even still around?” he asked. “It probably went out of business years ago.”

A feeling of panic swept over me as his words sank in. If Joe’s Playland had indeed gone out of business, then I’d spent all of those years hoarding my tickets for nothing!  They wouldn’t even be worth the paper they were printed on!

I rushed to check online and was relieved to learn that Joe’s Playland hadn’t gone to the big arcade in the sky…yet. And even though it was off-season at the beach, it said the arcade still was open on weekends.             

So one frosty Sunday, my husband and I headed to Salisbury Beach so I finally could cash in my precious tickets. During the entire ride, all I could think about was what prize I might like to get.

“I think I’m going to get a DVD player,” I finally said to my husband. “Everyone has one and I want one, too.”

He laughed. “Dream on! That arcade has been around for about a hundred years! The prizes probably are still the same ones that were there when it first opened. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to redeem your tickets for a nice butter churn…or maybe a manual typewriter!”

I wasn’t amused.

We finally turned onto the main drag through Salisbury Beach. My heart sank. The place looked like a ghost town. And most of the former structures, like the popular Surf Club Ballroom, had been torn down. Never had I seen so many empty spaces there before…or so much of the ocean.

But alas, to my delight, near a small pizza joint and a discount souvenir shop stood Joe’s Playland, its colorful lights beckoning from inside. I couldn’t wait to get in there.

We found a parking spot directly in front of the arcade and I bolted inside, heading straight for the prize-redemption counter. By the time my husband caught up with me, I was grinning with satisfaction. “There it is,” I said, pointing to a high-tech looking DVD player in a case behind the counter. “There’s my prize!”

A young employee approached and asked if he could help me with anything.

“Yes!” I said smiling, as I dug into my purse and pulled out the big wad of tickets. “How many tickets is that DVD player?”

“It’s 28,000,” he said.

My husband, sympathetic soul that he was, burst out laughing.

Did I cash in my tickets for a prize I could afford, like a set of carving knives or a salad-bowl set?  No, I was too upset. I brought the tickets back home, unredeemed.

And years later, I sold them as antique collectors’ items on eBay and got a bundle of money for them! 😁

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning humor columnist and the author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The Common-Sense Approach to Dream Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.