Bowling

by George Freeman

A few weeks ago, I was practicing on a Saturday afternoon like I do every week. While I was there a mother brought in her son, who was about 9 or 10 years old, and they got a lane a couple down from mine. Being as kids are, when he saw all my bowling bags laying around he walked over and looked inside, and then came all the questions, "Why do you got more than one ball?", "How do you make it curve like that?", "You ever do all strikes?", things like that. I tried to answer the questions so a 10 year old could understand them, which wasn't very easy since the inevitable "Why?" question kept popping up.

The kid was a ball of energy, and while I kept practicing I watched him bowl. They had the bumpers set out for him, and he was throwing ball after ball, smiling no matter what happened.

Then, around his second game, he threw a shot that bounced about 4 times off of the bumpers, and went slowly through the heart of the pins. They all went down. The kid went nuts, jumping up and down and running back to Mom to tell her how it happened, just in case she missed it.

I suppose that kind of thing happens a lot in bowling alleys around the country, but for some reason it reminded me about another young kid a long time ago, that went bowling with his mom.  Back then they didn't have bumpers, so he threw an awful lot of zeros and three counts, but it didn't really matter to him, he was having fun. Then on one shot, he threw it pretty much down the middle of the lane. When it finally got to the end of the lane, it hit the head pin pretty much dead on, and they did a domino fall. This kid threw a strike!

In that one moment, the course of one child's life was changed forever.

For all the nonsense that goes on in the sport; all the controversy and the politics that envelope the industry, we sometimes forget what makes the sport what it is. What makes it special to us all, and why we do any of it in the first place. Neither this kid nor the one 30+ years ago cared about the righty/lefty issue, or the impact of technology on equipment, or the scandals that involve the various bowling organizations. All these 2 kids cared about... EVER cared about, was seeing the last pin drop. I suppose adults can learn a lot from children.

I'm not sure whether the kid I saw a few weeks ago will grow up to be a PBA member, but he reminded me too much of the kid I had been 30-some years ago to dismiss it.  Even if he never picks up another ball, I took it as a reminder that no matter how frustrated I get, I do it for the love of the game.