You know, this BowlingJoe blog has been going on for months now and it occurred to me that I’ve never really done a piece on bowling. This has to change and change right now, as we’re a good 4 weeks into our league’s 2008-2009 season and a mere three or so weeks from the start of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) season, with each of the tournament finals being aired on ESPN every Sunday morning through April. People just shake their head at BowlingJoe when he tells them he has a standing weekly appointment in front of his flat screen television to watch the greatest hardwood warriors in the world punishing the pins to support their families. But then I remind myself that some of these guys are the same folks who will watch technologically enhanced stock cars drive around an oval track 200 times and yell “git ‘r done” at the television.My first memories of bowling go back to around age four, actually. My Port Angeles neighbor and longtime friend Kent and his family were avid bowlers and they brought me along one day. Picking up an 8 pound ball proved to be too taxing so I simply squatted down and rolled the ball with both hands right from the floor. Because those were the days before anyone thought about those wretched bumpers, I’m sure most of my shots went straight to the gutter, but after a few times in which the pins actually toppled I was hooked for life.
Kent and Shawn: my friends and bowling buddies for life
I joined a Saturday morning league, and had my neighborhood friends Kent, Rick, Shawn and Mark as teammates. All of them still pick up the ball from time to time except for Mark who is currently in the middle of a twenty year sentence for a triple felony. (Let this be a cautionary tale about how easy it is to slip into a life of crime when you give up bowling completely!). Later on I took some lessons, went to an all-week bowling camp in Issaquah, and actually got to the point where I could control the darned ball. This all went on until college where I averaged around 180-185 (naturally I thought I was better that I really was). Enter reality: marriage, the car, the house, the kid. Disposable income? What’s that? I hung up the bowling shoes from 1983-1997.
My bowling addiction resurfaced in ’97 when my friend John (we coached our kids in soccer and baseball for several years in Marysville) invited me to be on his Wednesday night team at Strawberry Lanes. I’d forgotten how much I missed being out on the hardwoods despite the fact that it was during the pre-smoking ban days and I’d go home smelling like the Marlboro Man.
I left Marysville for a Thursday afternoon league in Everett at Evergreen Lanes a couple of years later that was a better fit with my work schedule. Here's an active link to our stats and standings. It’s a nice little league. Eight three-person teams, scratch bowling (no handicap is used; teams and individuals go head to head). It’s competitive but we all know each other and have a pretty good time during the ten-frame combat. I’ve even had a brief moment of glory at Evergreen in a different Spring League, as I shot my one and only (so far) perfect 300 game in May of 2003. Bowlingwidow (in a very rare league bowling appearance) was even on my team and there to see it.
In the early stages of this season, our team is doing fairly well, sitting in third place out of eight. I’ve clawed my way up to an average of 210 after a not-so-good start. Pretty good, but there are people even in our little league who average in the upper 2-teens and even beyond 220. Of course, the dirty little secret to averaging that high “like a professional” lies in where and how much conditioner (or lane oil) the house puts on the lane. The patterns that the PBA uses are far more difficult and lower-scoring than the conditions we bowl on every week. None of us are quitting our day jobs and heading out on the PBA tour anytime soon.
The great cathedral of bowling in Reno, Nevada
In recent years, with Muffinhead-edboy off in college, I’ve hooked up with Brian and his gaggle of bowlers from the South Sound and tried my chances in the USBC (United States Bowling Congress) National Tournament to compete with 60,000 of my closest friends from around the country. Last year it was in Albuquerque, NM so Bowlingwidow and I made a long road trip out of it. Next year it’ll be a quick trip to Las Vegas, and the year after its back to Reno. I’ve never done well enough to have earned my entry fee back but it’s all about competing and participating in a sport that you really like with people who feel the same way. Not to mention a great regular excuse to take a little vacation.
Brothers Scott (left) and Brian (right) mentally prepare for the big event backstage in Reno
I was so impressed by your 300 game that I scoured the Herald's website looking for more coverage. I couldn't find anything, which is odd because 5/29/03 seems to have been a slow news day. What gives?
ReplyDeleteMuch like darts, bowling has never gotten the media attention it deserves. And during an election year, it's twice as bad.
ReplyDeleteOutrageous!
ReplyDeleteI am putting in an official request for a re-match! But be warned, i am thinking about getting my own shoes, which i am sure will improve my score dramaticallly...
ReplyDeleteGroovelily, I'm up for a rematch anytime. I'll even let you have Bowlingwidow on your team, we'll combine your scores and my doubles partner, LeftyNemesis (or Smartguy depending on what name he's going by today), and I will STILL emerge victorious.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, what's the deal with women and shoes anyway?
Deal. time and place...and me and my sweet bowling shoes (they do make some that are sweet??) will kick some ass. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember those days well, after the harness was all mended, the snow was falling, and thoughts turned to... bowling, back in North Dakota. Actually, bowling was just the excuse to get together with friends. On mixed league night, we'd spend the two hours figuring out where we were going to play bridge for the next few hours, and occasionally convince the women that they had to stop gossiping once in awhile and actually throw a ball down the lane.
ReplyDeleteOn the cutthroat men's league (where I averaged at least ten pins higher average than on mixed, year after year), we had a system that pretty much every time someone threw a ball, someone either made money or had to buy drinks. The hours afterward were spent closing the bar down. 7 to 9 shift was best since it left more time for drinking. Going home after "bowling", eight miles to the ranch in a whiteout blizzard, slightly drunk, is an interesting experience.
Just to be clear, I never approached BowlingJoe's level, but I did manage a fairly respectable (at least in my eyes) 175 or so for several years. I also never bowled a 300 or anything close to it. However -- and this is not insignificant -- I have bowled games in the 130s both left handed and also between the legs. If you think that last is easy, you try it! It involves walking (facing forward) to the line, swinging the ball and contorting your body to allow you to throw the ball from behind, between your legs, without falling down. Yes, BowlingJoe, I was much younger and much ummm... smaller...so you can just stop ROFL now.
OMG cvow! WTF? LMFAO 2DA. TMI in RL. U R still my BFF AFAICT.
ReplyDelete