I’m not a real fan of bowling although I did once break 200 during phys ed class in the eighth grade when bowling was considered an athletic activity for middle schoolers. Probably had more to do with a bowling alley around the corner from school than stronger muscles and bones for adolescents. The bowling alley and the school are both now gone. The bowling alley became a series of storefronts. The school, what was then called a junior high school, was demolished to make room for a city building.
I miss the building because of the great memories it brings me and how it helped define me.
My father told stories about attending the school when it was the only high school in town and how a graduating student decided the best way to celebrate the final day of school was to ride his horse through the halls of the two-story building.
A group of us would sometimes spend our lunch money for a loaf of cinnamon bread from the bakery across the street from where I morning buses dropped us. We’d eat the center out of the still warm bread, ripping the heart out like breaking open a watermelon just for the sweeter center. The spicy dough would sit in our bellies through the noon hour when we would bum food from the girls in the lunchroom.
I returned to the building after three years, nine months and 18 days of military duty to attend Sante Fe Junior College, a perfect place to begin my second attempt at higher education. It was there where I discovered Anais Nin and the Turner Thesis.
The boys in our class were recruited to make sure the bowling alley’s pin machines
functioned properly. This required a short training session at the
beginning of the year which included a safety lesson about the
automated ball return and pin placement device. More science and
engineering instead of athletics.
The scientist in me learned there is a simple order to bowling. Ten pins, one ball, two tries, 300 points rarely scored. I thought of it as more of a physics problem that athletic prowess. Place the ball on a certain path with enough energy in the proper direction and there was no reason to not have a perfect score each game. The variables could all be measured, quantified and repeated. A great science class. It never worked out that way for me although I was one of a few to score greater than 200.
No Comments so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
