THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260513
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
His golden mane fading in the bright January sunshine, Trigger waited with hollow eyes Thursday to be loaded on the back of a small movers truck. Once, not so long ago - for only a quarter - the wooden charger carried child-cowboys across majestic mountains of imagination.
But now, after nearly 50 years, The Foots-Ball Palace - home to the wooden replica of Roy Rogers' horse - has closed its doors.
Trigger will be ridden no more, at least not at the Foots-Ball Palace. The Outer Banks landmark, a sprawling, weathered wooden building on the Beach Road, will be torn down to make way for a housing development.
``It's sad,'' said Walter ``Skip'' Skipper, who has leased the huge game room for the past nine years. ``The kids won't have a place to go anymore. I guess people need houses these days more than they need a game room. The world is changing, I guess.''
The world has changed since the Foots-Ball Palace was built in 1948, one of the first structures on the white sand strip. It has been a haven for bingo players, shaggers, bowlers, pool sharks and young swains. It has seen first loves, first dates and first fights.
For two decades, Skipper, who all the kids know as Skip, has watched it all, against the crack of billiard balls and the ring of pinball bells. He met the late owner of the Palace, Fred I. Jones, 20 years ago in Norfolk, and that led to a job. Skipper never left.
``He told me, `Come down to the beach and help me keep an eye on my kids,' '' Skipper said. ``That's the way he saw them. They were his kids. I've seen Fred at times when he would just pick one kid out, give him a handful of tokens, and say `Go have a good time.' He really loved the kids. Now the kids won't have nothin' to do.''
If Skipper had a quarter for all the stories he could tell, he could play pinball til Kingdom come.
``About three years ago, a guy came in here and said that he had met his wife in here 18 years ago,'' Skipper said. ``They're still married. There are a lot of people who met their husbands or wives in here.''
For all its romance, the Foots-Ball Palace has seen its rough times, too.
``This place has seen some good people and some bad people,'' Skipper said.
James Phillips, 35, first came to the Palace 18 years ago. He readily admitted that he got into more than his share of trouble at the game room. As beer flowed, tempers flared.
``When I hit this beach, I was 17,'' he said. ``I'm a Christian now, and I'm glad to see this place go. But it wasn't this place that made people bad. You can't stop evil. But Skip did a good job of cleaning it up.''
Skipper added, ``By the time I got it cleaned up, they sold it.''
But more than a human story, the Foots-Ball Palace was a museum of amusement. David Shields, a Virginian who moved to the Outer Banks two months ago, is a seller and collector of arcade games. Some of the items from the Palace will be sold, he said. Others he will keep.
``We would come here eight to 10 years ago on vacation,'' Shields said. ``They had a machine just inside the door called `Billy Bob's Balloon Machine.' We'd fill those balloons up, and take them back to the cottage, and they'd be up on the ceiling all week.''
The Foots-Ball Palace, which during the peak of the Foosball craze had 46 game tables, also featured Hercules, which Skipper said was the largest pinball game in the world.
``It was three, maybe four times as big as a regular pinball machine,'' Skipper said. ``They used a cueball from a pool table as a pinball.''
``There are a lot of games that you don't see anymore,'' Shields said. ``There's an original Space Invaders game in here, and a Ms. Pac-Man. It's like a museum of arcade games.''
One game, known as Punchball, provided a way for men to impress their dates, and to blow off steam. Twenty-five cents would give them one shot at a punching bag, the strength of each blow measured by the machine.
``There was a guy who got so mad at his girlfriend, he kept hitting the bag with his hand. He broke that hand,'' Skipper said. ``Another time, there was a guy who used to punch it with his head. Something about that boy just wasn't right.''
But there will be no more shots at the Punchball, no more games of eight ball, and for the Foosball tables, the goal rush is no more. As of Jan. 15, the sale of the palace property was final.
``Our lawyer called me, and said it's time to start loading up the stuff,'' Skipper said.
Under the provisions of Fred Jones' will, most of the proceeds from the sale will go to local charities. But despite the good that will come from the Palace's closing, it marks the end of an era.
Skipper said he will miss the place. But all he will take from it is memories.
``I've thought a lot about Fred,'' Skipper said. ``If this property was on the other side of the road, or if Fred were still alive, this place wouldn't be closing. This was Fred's place. This was his life.
``I get sort of emotional when I think about it. Like the Casino and The Atlantis, this is a landmark.''
The Casino was razed years ago. The Atlantis, a popular Outer Banks nightclub adjacent to the Foots-Ball Palace, has been torn down. The Foots-Ball Palace will meet the same fate next month.
``It already got the Atlantis,'' Skipper says, waving his hand in the direction of a parked bulldozer. ``Now the bulldozer will get this, too. I'll miss this place.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
Trigger, the coin-operated wonder horse, will have to find happy
trails somewhere else. It and a host of other arcade amusements
were being moved out of the closed Nags Head fun spot Thursday. The
47-year-old institution will be razed for a housing development. by CNB