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You see them all over town during their lunch hour or after school, playing the machines.

They range in age from 7 or 8 up to 18 or older. As they huddle over darting objects on a blackened screen, there is a common sense of determination — of inner quiet.

Bumps, beeps, gurgles and booms blurt out from the consoles, but for a time at least, there is no outside world — no school work or teachers, parents, jobs or worries.

Instead there is Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede or Frogger — and a multitude of others that most older citizens would be hard pressed to name.

The games are part of the new video world, and Lake Placid’s young people are like kids everywhere else — they seek the machines and the special escape they provide.

Area hotels, motels and inns are equipped with the latest video games, drawing local patrons along with the customers staying for the night.

Other major meeting places like Strack’s Penalty Box on Main Street draw kids coming from school to play a game or two during lunch.

There, amidst a blanket of hamburger fumes and food smells, they play.

Two or three adolescents huddle around one machine waiting their turns. Beside them, a younger child too small to reach Donkey Kong perches himself up on a high stool and wrestles with the game as top tunes throb in the background.

Older high schoolers watch the action during their own game of pool, and later, if time permits, they’ll have a match or two at the screens themselves.

Young people come to these places for a number of reasons, but the main attraction is obvious — the games are fun.

Upstate Vending Inc., a Lake Placid firm that distributes pinball and video games in the Tri-Lakes area, estimates that it has 384 pinball machines and video games in 150 to 250 sites.

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Royal couple named

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The royal couple of the winter of 1932 will reign once again at the 57th Coronation and Ice Show Jan. 1, 1983 at the Olympic Ice Center in Lake Placid.

Jack Shea of Lake Placid and Lucille Hickey McNulty of Port Henry, who were king and queen the same year Lake Placid hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics, will ascend to their thrones again 51 years later on New Year’s Day.

Performing the archbishop’s duty — crowning the royal couple — will be Ned Harkness, president of the state Olympic Regional Development Authority. Escorting the couple to their thrones will be a royal court made up of junior representatives of Lake Placid’s various winter sports organizations.

Jack Shea earned his crown in 1932 by virtue of two gold medal speedskating victories in the III Winter Olympiad, which had just concluded in Lake Placid.

Miss Hickey won a local beauty contest which entitled her to wear the royal robes and crown.

At this year’s ice show, the list of performers is headed by Brian Orser, 1982 Canadian senior men’s champion, who finished fourth in the 1982 worlds.

Other performers will include Elizabeth Manley, 1982 Canadian senior ladies silver medalist, who trains in Lake Placid with three-time world champion Emmerich Danzer.

The show is sanctioned by the U.S. Figure Skating Association through the Skating Club of Lake Placid and is sponsored by ORDA.