Reporter's notebook - May 20

Insert quarter for second player

CLOVIS — If you were in town Friday afternoon, you might have glimpsed a vibrant slice of a largely bygone gaming era rumbling down the road.

With more than a dozen arcade machines fastened tight to a trailer, Jeremy Meyer drove down Prince Street from “just an old building” north of Clovis where he said he’d purchased the retro icons.

For some, it was an evocative splash of neon-colored nostalgia.

“Oh look, someone loaded up the Eighties on a trailer and is hauling it away,” District Court Judge Fred Van Soelen wrote online of the sighting.

Van Soelen told The News he thought back to the quarters he’d sunk into games at the old “Video Village” arcade three decades back, previously located near 21st and Prince streets.

The devices are on their way to join a growing ensemble of comparable consoles, part of a project a year in the making for Meyer to establish a new arcade near Tucson, Arizona. He came to Clovis last week especially for the games, as he did previously to Santa Fe on a separate expedition.

Maybe it’s the mind playing tricks, but you can almost hear the “waka waka” sound fading down the highway.

— Compiled by Staff Writer David Grieder