This Space Dedicated to “PEA”

guest blog post

Pinball Players have been known by their 3 initials ever since the first players were prompted to enter them into 1985’s Chicago Cubs “Triple Play”, the first pinball machine to allow players to use flipper buttons to enter initials into an alpha numeric display. And while some of today’s machines allow for more than 3 initials, many players still just enter 3 letters. Even IFPA player profiles include a space for 3 letter player initials.

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to dedicate this space to PEA. For those who may not already know, PEA are the initials of Norma Jennings, who for 78 consecutive weeks has brought us her Pinball And Cancer twitch channel (twitch.tv/pinballandcancer). She titled her stream to document her two journeys, her 45+ year love of pinball and her 1.5+ year journey of being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Her pre-stream screen is a rotating montage of many in the pinball community holding up signs showing “This Gameplay Is Dedicated to Norma (PEA)”. Her pinball initials arose from her first tournament experiences years ago as a way to show her husband, who often called her “sweet pea”, how she was doing as he followed her in the standings.

In late 2020, “Operation PEA” was launched by long time pinball player LOS (Carlos Porta). He already had incredibly high scores on Metallica, with his initials on most every score and award on the Metallica Pro machine on location at Arcade Odyssey in Miami. LOS decided he was going to play to get all Metallica’s high scores as well as every crank it up, every song, and every mode / feature award and achievement available on the game and replace his and everyone else’s initials with PEA. This was no small task since Metallica is known to have more scores and awards than most any other machine and he already had his name on many that no one was able to beat.

One by one, PEA started appearing on the Metallica display during attract mode and after games were over. Some took LOS hours, some took him days to beat. He consistently went to Arcade Odyssey every other day or so, to seek and destroy scores. Days went by, then weeks. It would have been easier if his scores were low or if he asked Arcade Odyssey to reset the scores. But he wanted to show PEA how much he and many others in the pinball community support and care about her. Within a couple of months, victory was at hand. There was one and only one set of initials on that machine: PEA.

Ever since she played her first game of pinball standing on a milk crate over 45 years ago, Norma Jennings had a lifelong passion for pinball. In addition to being an amazing player who won the 2019 Women’s Tournament at Free Play Florida, she is a tireless promoter of the sport, commentator, tournament volunteer at FPF and at The Pinball Asylum (site of the IFPA17 World Pinball Championships) among other contributions. PEA is a highly respected pinball Tournament Director known for her impressive knowledge of IFPA tournament rules and was named one of The Pinball Profile’s Top 10 Most Intriguing People of 2020. This week, the pinball community was saddened to hear that Norma announced that due to her health, her most recent stream was likely her last and that she is shifting from cancer treatment to hospice treatment.

For over a year now, “PEA Scores” as they have been called, have appeared on pinball machines around the country, entered by many different players including some who have never met Norma. As LOS said: “there’s something different and motivating about playing for someone else, to honor another person, and entering THEIR initials instead of yours”. After playing a great game and prompted to enter your initials, perhaps the next person who walks up to play will see PEA displayed on the backglass and wonder how PEA gets so many high scores on so many games in so many places…