When a strike is good....

You all probably know by now that I met my husband because of a mutual love for the sport of bowling. However, you probably don’t know much of my history with bowling or why I love it as much as I do to begin with.

When I was little, I would go to watch my dad on his league night. It was a special privilege to stay up late and eat junk food while cheering for him and his teammates. They would teach me different hand symbols for applauding a strike or spare or even sympathizing about a gutter ball. There was always a lot of excitement in the atmosphere and the sound of the many balls hitting the pins offered up a neat rhythm.

I even took bowling lessons when I was about six years old. There was a bowling alley by where I grew up and my dad would take me every Saturday morning. I was part of a very small group learning how to bowl, so it wasn’t too much pressure and I had a lot of fun.

As I grew up, I continued to enjoy the sport and would go bowling often with my family and friends. I also loved the scene in “Grease 2” where they were singing at the bowling alley (even though I thought “Score Tonight” was only about getting a lot of strikes at the time). I always found something comforting about going to a bowling alley, even if I was just there to watch and not participate.

In the fall of 2000, I was dating a guy I later became friends with. He suggested that we join a bowling league together. It was one that met on Sunday mornings (yes, I was not a parent yet and was willing to get up at 8 a.m. on a SUNDAY) for breakfast and a few games each week. We’d also go on bowling dates to get in some practice before the league officially started. When we decided to just become friends, we stayed on as bowling partners for the rest of the season. My dad was thrilled that I was bowling again and we'd go bowling together, as well, for me to get extra practice. I even competed with him in some special parent and (grown) child competition, but I didn't do too well.

When the breakfast league ended, I joined a women’s league through a friend of my mom’s. I felt amateur there and didn’t really have a lot of people to talk to. In the fall of 2001, I asked three of my close girl friends to join a Sunday evening (more ideal) league that offered pizza as part of a package deal. (Twelve dollars for three games and a pizza worked for me.) We had fun bowling together and even made up code names for ourselves. We first used our nicknames and later switched to “Sex and the City” characters, even making shirts for ourselves with our names. We sometimes had other friends who came along offer support. (It was in this league that I had to pre-bowl for Super Bowl Sunday, which was a catalyst in meeting my husband.)

When my husband and I started dating, our first official date was at a bowling alley, where he taught me how to walk with the ball, thus improving my technique and score. He would come to our league nights for support and I’d later go to support him when he joined my dad’s league. We would also continue to go on bowling dates, as there was an alley that did Sunday night “all you could bowl” deals. (You’d think I’d be all bowled out by then.)

On Super Bowl Sunday the year of my wedding, I didn't skip out on league night and instead invited a close friend to bowl with us in place of someone who was going to be away. She then was witness to my first ever score of 200! I think I still saved the score sheet after printing it out.

After I became a mom, I didn't bowl as often as I used to. I think my husband also stopped participating in his league. When we lived in New Jersey, we'd occasionally take the kids bowling. There was a program through AMF where kids got to bowl for free and adults used a family pass to bowl as often as they wanted. The alley that was participating was a little bit out of the way, but we went often during the summer of 2009 with our boys. By the end of the summer, our older son was doing really well, scoring in the 90's. We'd even let our younger son roll the ball and then my husband would help him push it down the lane. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the nearby lanes in Maryland that were participating were for duckpin bowling. We tried that once and didn't like it as much as the standard 10-pin bowling we're used to. Scoring was weird too. We went bowling a couple of times earlier this year (to lanes that were further away), but haven't been since. I have hopes that one day at least one of our sons (or even our future child, b'shaah tovah) will want to bowl in a league with either my husband or myself so that we can continue the sport and pass along the love for bowling to future generations.