I'm Bowled Over!

   Physics, probability, skill, luck, and fun all come together in the amazing little game of bowling. Ten pins, arranged like Pascal's Triangle wait helplessly as an 8 to 16 pound ball comes rolling down on them! That satisfying CRACK! when you throw a strike! The exasperation when that one last pin just doesn't wanna go down!  The dismay when you're left with a split! All part of the emotional roller coaster ride of bowling!


   Years ago, my brother Charles ("Choll"), nephew Stephen, a friend Regina and I bowled in a mixed league.  You meet all kinds of characters, all kinds of teams. Like the lady who shows up drunk every night. Or the dude who thinks he's Joe Bowler. Some teams think they're all that, and look down on you like trash. Those are the guys we enjoy beating the most! Mixed leagues are great for beginners and accomplished bowlers as well. Lots of fun!
    The best game I ever bowled was the night I had a tooth taken out. I guess the pain meds mellowed me out enough to keep me from over-thinking? Whatever! But you know, you've got to anylize everything; are the lanes oily? are they dry? Is my ball clean? Am I putting too much spin? Not enough? Do I need coffee? or French fries?
   Then some guy punches up the jukebox and blasts some tune only he likes. Two-hundred and forty songs, and you gotta pick that one! Hey, it's part of the ambience. Remember the old days, when you had to keep score yourselves with scoresheets and pencil? You had to do the math yourself; now everything's computerized, and your frame is displayed up there on the screen for everyone to see.
   Oh, and if you don't own your own ball, you have to hunt around for a House Ball that suits you. After three or four false starts, you find one that doesn't head straight for the gutter each time you throw it. And, no, we can't put the bumpers out!  What? A foot-fault? So you roll a split and the ball gets stuck and the pins won't re-set. So Billy the Bowling Alley Guy goes down inside the machine and fixes everything up again.
    Then your team mate is ready to roll when you notice a little head behind the pins....WAIT! Billy's still in there!!! Or you're just about ready to throw your ball, when the person in the lane beside you runs up and rolls their shot, totally breaking your concentration! AAARGH! Your ball misses every pin!
   Or you need to pick up this spare, and the ball's rolling, rolling, rolling, while you're all shuckin' & jivin' with the Body English to steer the ball to the pin. Which never works, but we all do it anyway. True story.
    Do you all know what a "coffee-box" is?  It's when each team member but one throws a strike in the same frame. Then we say the person who didn't get a strike has to buy coffee for the rest of us who did. (Almost never enforced, just for fun) A double is when you throw strikes in two consecutive frames, and a turkey is when you get three-in-a-row. It feels so great the first time you turkey; you break into your happy dance! 
   Back in our league days, my brother Choll and I would celebrate a big win by treating ourselves to pie & coffee at The Pie Plate restaurant. Or, if we lost, we would console ourselves with a big hunk of pie & coffee from The Pie Plate.  Come to think of it, if we had a mediocre game, we'd review it over pie & coffee at The Pie Plate.  (Do you get the feeling one day there will be a post just about pie?)
   One of the nice things about bowling is that it can accomodate players of diffierent skill levels and abilities. For children just learning the game, we have the afore-mentioned bumpers which block the ball from rolling into the gutters. For persons with physical or developmental disabilities, there is a kind of chute to launch the ball. I love to see when a little kid- or really old kid- who can barely lift the ball just drops it on the lane and it tumbles slowly, gradually, gently down the lane and you're wondering if it will ever reach the pins.....and then one at a time they all go down. A strike?? I don't know of any other sport that is so do-able.
   Bowling, like fishing, is one of those great bonding activities for parents to pass on to their kids; an excellent family experience. Someone out there is saying, "What about duckpins? What about candlesticks?" Don't forget Moonlight Bowling! Yeah, those variations are all cool too, in their own way. But my favorite is the basic ten pin. One of the things we love about life. And Billy loves it, too.