Sentence-Combining Exercise 1

The players and fans leaned forward eagerly.

A bar near campus would not be complete without a row of pinball machines, where the players come to play and not drink.  Lined up against the wall, the players stand in front of the machines with their trigger fingers poised on the flippers on the side of the machine, focusing on the silver ball darting from one obstacle to another.  The pleasure of scoring a million points or winning a free game costs them dearly, as the players pay quarter after quarter until their coins are gone and they are forced to go to the nearby machine which exchanges dollar bills for change.

Of all the street musicians I saw playing in Boston last summer, the most moving was a blind, young banjo player about my age.  He sat in front of a Woolworth's with his damp hair sticking out from under a red headband and his blank eyes looking at no one.  He was an adept musician, and he entertained passers-by until his fingers, slick with sweat in the city heat, slipped on the strings and made it difficult for him to play.  He wiped his hands on a large white handkerchief, leaned back against the Woolworth's front window with the banjo in his lap, and sang ballads, which were soft and low intervals of melancholy on a bright Boston day.