I posted this in the Misc-non bowling section, in parts, in another long thread. 'Bones read it and suggested I post it here, so I will. Curious to see your response.
It's in parts, abstracted from the other thread. I tried to use "pie" as a metaphor to sort of tie it together. Like Phillip Marlow (who was also there) said in a PM, "My god we were young then."
1. I like pie.
2. I remember the pie from my first bowling alley. Did I ever tell you that I bowled at the Bowlaway? And that it had a cafe with homemade pie? The peach pie was my favorite, but the counter-lady also made very good chocolate pie and banana cream pie. I used to play pin-ball there, for a nickel a game. But I liked the pie best.
3. The Bowlaway also had a bowling game. A little lane, maybe 15 fet long, with hard rubber balls about 4 inches in diameter, and plastic "pins" that hung down. I got a sliver under my thumbnail from it. It was very old and splintering out around the button you pushed to start a game. But is was very near the pie, so I had some chocolate pie and felt much better.
The candy machine was cool too. Sometimes, for you dime, you would get nothing. But sometimes you might get 20 or 30 candy bars, all at once. But I still liked the pie best.
4. Later on, they took the cafe out of the Bowlaway. I never knew why, even though I worked ther. I surely missed the pie.
But, after a while, I turned 21 and started doing what everyone elso on the premier men's league did. Well, really, what every other person over 21 did. I put a fifth of whiskey in my locker so I could go back for a little nip between frames every now and again. It was quite social, what with 10 or 12 guys having shots in the locker room.
But I always missed the pie from the bowling alley.
5. The Bowlaway is still there, still a bowling center, today, some 40 years after I first walked in the doors. Of course it's changed some; a couple of years back they put in automatic scoring, and they've had several new masking units over the years. But I think they still run A-2's (if that's what the original machines were) and the locker room is still the same, probably still has several cases of whiskey in the lockers. But the never put the cafe, with the fine pies, back in.
I'll never drive by or think of the Bowlaway that I don't miss that peach pie, fresh from the oven. Did I mention that I like pie?
6. I remember that when I worked at the Bowlaway I would walk up and down the lanes, dragging the duster (or whatever it was called) behind me. I always started at lane 16, if possible, and worked my way down to lane 1. Lane 1 was directly in front of the counter where the pie was served, and I could walk off the approaches directly to get my pie.
I really liked pie then. I still do.
7. I remember one guy from back in the day at the Bowlaway. His real name was Jimmy Kato, but he always called himself "Manuel Lopez" (pronounced Lowpay.) His one goal was to always be at least the bottom payout on the tournament board, hence "low pay.'
He liked pie also.
8. And then there was Gene and June, who owned the Bowlaway. Gene moved it from the basement on Second street and converted to automatic pinsetters in 1960. He couldn't bowl for squat, but he knew everyone by name and always had a "Hello...., how ya doing?" for them when they came in the door.
June spent much of her time in a full body cast - her back was slowly disintegrating and she died young - too young. Of course I was in love with her, as was everyone. I'll never forget how excited whe was ehen Gene bought her a Pontiac Firebird one year for her birthday. I used to sometimes go visit her at home; of course, with her back and being in a cast, she didn't make pie. But she surely did like pie, as did Gene.
9. One fo the real treats of the little cafe in the Bowlaway wa at about this time of year they had Huckleberry pie. I remember having huckleberry pie a la mode. I remember the tart taste of the hucklebery and the cold sweetness of vanilla ice cream as though it were yesterday. The huckleberry pie only lasted a few weeks each year, but it always marked the approach of the new league season. Of course it was good that few bowlers were in the Bowlaway at that time of year. It left more of the huckleberry pie for those of us whe worked there.
I've always liked pie, but somehow the pie of my youth seemed to taste the best.
10. Pretty often, on a Saturday afternoon, after bowling was over on TV, there would be a pot game at the Bowlaway. Usually it would be two guys, maybe Bernie Streifling, or Bob Underwood, or Herb Kirkpatrick or his brother Roy (the only 2 guys from the Bowlaway to ever join the PBA, as far as I know) bowling each other 10 games at $100 a game. Decent money in 1963 or so. I liked to go up to the bowl and watch. The only problem was that, for some reason, they almost always bowled on lanes 13 and 14 - much to far away from the pie for my liking.
I guess I really went to watch these pot games because I could get more pie that way.
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