Elusive Headpin - Part XII

We arrived at the bowling alley and my first impression was that it surely had changed. It looked like the parking lot hadn’t been redone since the last time I set foot on that property 25 years ago. The exterior of the building itself showed a fair amount of paint chipping and appeared that the new owners hadn’t even bothered to paint over some of the graffiti on the rear of the building.

The old snack bar looked intact but it did appear that they had reworked the front desk. A more modern looking system was in place with automatic scorekeeping equipment deployed in each of the lanes. I thought back to all the fun discussions around checking the score sheets because they were always done “by hand” and subject to human foibles.

Other than the newer technology installed within the playing areas and at the front desk, the rest of the interior portion f the building looked much the same as I remembered it. As usual I was the first to arrive so, I basically got us a couple of lanes and began to change shoes and get ready for the rest of the group to arrive. I also took the liberty of walking into the bar and purchased a pitcher of whatever they had on tap. I typically did not like cheap draft beer but, made an exception to our past and the local circumstance in this situation.

As I was tossing a couple of practice shots and feeling the rust from not having bowled in about eight years, the first of my party showed up. I gave a nod and a wave to Ron as he came in from the sunshine into the dim lighting of the alley neon. By my third toss, I had at least worked out some of the rust from my foot work, the shots were poor (to say the least) but I hoped that this too would come along with a few more repetitions.

Ron quickly joined me and started in at the beer. He began bowling on the lane next to mine. He had thrown only two shots but, both of them were strikes. He looked over at me with that goofy grin and stated. “You still have a problem finding that pocket aren’t you…?”

“I haven’t tossed this thing in eight years.”

“Doesn’t matter, you never cold match my first ball skills…” He chided

“Is that what you call it…?” I countered.

Our banter was interrupted by the almost simultaneous arrival of our last two former team mates. Randy and Raymond both arrived entering from opposite sides of the building. They made short work of getting their shoes and balls polished and prepared for some friendly competition.

Randy suggested that the first games be a Scotch Double match. In a Scotch Doubles game, each partner would take turns with one player tossing the first shot of a frame with his teammate picking up spares for the first five frames of the game and then switching roles for the second five frames of the games.

We had compared notes and it seemed that both Raymond and Ron had been bowling regularly in the past few years. Randy stated that he hadn’t bowled in about five years. My absence of eight years being the biggest handicap.