I bowl in a city, and surrounding area that must have about 100 lanes worth of bowling inside "churches, private clubs and social halls, and political clubs".

 

Some of these places have 2 lanes, 4 lanes and 6 to 8 lanes.   Some of the places are slowly closing over the years since club membership, along with church memberships are starting to get less and less.

 

Many of these places are dungeons and you really get to learn how to bowl.   

 

There are alot of these hidden gems in your towns, these could be almost anywhere.   There is a town a few miles over that has 2 lanes underneath a small deli/lunch hall.  No pinsetters, so it's very old.    There is also a hotel in my town that has 8 lanes in the basement, that hasn't been used in about 30 years.   The church I grew up going to, has 2 or 4 lanes tucked away in a side building, collecting dust.  No pinsetters there either, very old.

  

 

Edited by Xx 12 X 300 xX on 3/10/2012 at 11:46 AM

The church where my son attended grade school, still has functioning lanes....

Picture shows that they are in pretty decent shape....

 

Even has a FB Page! 

Duke Harding

I like that name.

 

Clifton NJ . Cant curse, but a priest would stay around and play cards. Brutal conditions, great practice for the Petersen.

One of the first places I ever bowled was a church in tiny Monroeville, Ala. It had either 2 or 4 lanes, I forget which. No oil on the lanes, old Brunswick A-1 (re: slowwwwww) machines.

 

What was really fun to watch was, when (not if) you had to call a stop, the supervising adult had to go back there and fix things. Usually it was someone's mom. They'd go to the back, turn the machine off, fiddle around for five minutes, turn the machine back on and then come back up front with their recommendation: "Throw another ball and see what happens this time."

 

Then you'd repeat the process, etc., etc.

 

Jess