Get An Awesome Shirt And Celebrate Rockford’s Nickel World’s 25th Anniversary

Need to scratch a nostalgic itch? Head to Nickel World this weekend, I promise you won't be sorry.

Nickel World holds a very special place in my heart. I remember it opening up 25 years ago when I was still in high school. We were regulars at Panino's right down the road on Main, so we were definitely annoying teenagers at Nickel World about every other month.

As I grew older, it became a place that my grandma and I would take my little cousins to when they visited. Grandma loved the place. She was definitely a child at heart and I think she had more fun than the kids when she went.

I just recently went to Nickel World a few months ago. My sister was in town because grandma had gotten sick and was in the hospital. Grandma was sliding pretty fast and the doctors needed some time to look at her so we needed to go somewhere for about 2 hours to burn some time.

We both decided that in honor of grandma, we would go to Nickel World and have some fun. I won a decent amount of tickets playing skee-ball and pop-a-shot. On our way out, I do what I always do at an arcade and give my tickets to a kid that's there. I remember some old guy giving me a bunch of tickets when I was young and it was better than receiving cash at that point so it's always something I try to pay forward.

I spotted a kid with a bag of tickets and handed them over. He said thanks and then ran over to an older woman and said "Grandma! Look at what they gave me!" My sister noted that the grandson/grandmother combo looked an acted A LOT like how my grandma and I were together. We definitely did not cry about it. My grandma would pass about 6 hours later. I'm not necessarily much of a spiritual person but the symbolism definitely was not lost on me.

Sorry to get serious but what I'm getting at folks is that Nickel World is possibly a magical place that must be preserved. You can do just that this weekend when they celebrate their 25th anniversary this Saturday. While you're there pick up one of their awesome shirts to help the cause.

You can check out all the details on their Facebook page.

P.S. The best game there is the X-Men 4-player game. I spent 18 dollars at a hotel in Michigan to beat it when I was about 12. I bet at Nickel World I could beat it for about 1/5th of that.