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| Livn'
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JASON THOMAS |
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| Livin'
The Dream |
Week 5
By Jason Thomas
My youngest son turned 5 earlier this month and one of the presents
he got was a new bowling ball. We had to order the ball from a distributor
(like many pro shops this one no longer carries inventory) and it
took about a week for the ball to come in. It took another two weeks
to finally coordinate a time with the pro shop owner (whose shop
hours are stranger than something an owl on methamphetamine might
keep) to come in and have it drilled.
The day we finally settled on was a Friday afternoon and, having
arrived at the center a little before the time the shop was scheduled
to open, decided to bowl a few games while we waited. The 40-lane
center was almost dead empty, save for a mom and son who were bowling
on the lane right next to us. I'm not sure why the guy at the desk
would place us right next to each other in an empty 40-lane center,
but I do know that I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who takes the
urinal right next to you in the public bathroom when there are ten
other empty ones and you're the only two in there. But he did give
my boys their rental shoes for free, so all is forgiven.
I wrangled up my two sons (the oldest one is 7) and we put our shoes
on, typed our names in and commenced the bowling. About midway through
the first game my oldest son, who cares for bowling about as much
as a fox cares for the life of an unborn chicken, decided he would
drop the 6-pound house ball onto the lane to see if it could make
it all the way down to the pins by itself. To my amazement, it made
it about halfway before getting hung up on one of its overly beveled
finger holes and stopped smack-dab in the center of the lane.
The porter, a man about my age who's been working at the center
since it opened more than 20 years ago (and whom we affectionately
refer to as "Super Dave") came down to remove the urgent "dead ball
situation." As he was about to go get it, I had the brilliant idea
of announcing my intention to do a trick shot. "Anybody want to
see me hook it around the ball and get a strike?" I said. Of course
the 5, 7 and 9-year old bowling next to us thought it was a great
idea. Super Dave gave me his blessing, although the look on his
face indicated that he would rather have lit cigarettes put out
in his eyeballs.
I got up on the approach and saw there were about 15 boards between
the right edge of the orange 6-pounder sitting like a dead squirrel
in the middle of the lane and the gutter. I had actually been playing
17, which was petty much exactly where the ball was sitting, so
I knew I needed to go well right of that to get around the ball.
I felt a slight bit of anxiety as I lined up the shot and began
my approach, not unlike the last time I needed to strike to make
the cut in a regional (and remembering how infrequently I was able
to pull this off didn't help matters much). I somehow managed to
put those thoughts behind me, made a pretty decent shot and slow-hooked
it out to around the fifth board, where it made a nice arc back
into the pocket and sent all ten pins into the pit. The crowd went
wild. Super Dave breathed a sigh of relief so big that, in retrospect,
it made me think he might have been on the verge of a pulmonary
embolism prior to my successful execution of the shot.
After two games of bowling, my boys had had it and they decided
to sit it out while I bowled solo to finish off the games we'd paid
for. In the middle of the last game I left a wicked 7-10 split which
kind of made me a little mad, so I announced to the gallery "How
would you like to see me pick this up?!" Of course, they were for
it. Without a thought of how disappointed they might be should I
not be able to pull off the million-to-one miracle (that thought
came later, which unfortunately for me, is usually the way it happens)
I took off. A couple feet back on the approach to accommodate the
longer steps and higher backswing needed to give it the full business,
I launched one hard and fast, cross-lane headed straight at the
ten-pin. I thought to myself "You know, this one has a real chance
even though I don't think I've ever seen anyone in this house bounce
one out of the pit in my 20 years of bowling here." (Indeed, the
pits at Brunswick Zone Simi Valley are like veritable black holes).
The ball blasted into the left half of the ten pin like Hulk Hogan
smashing a hapless tomato can of an opponent into the ring ropes,
pinning it into the corner of the pit before squirting it like a
wet bar of soap up and over the edge of the pin deck toward the
7 pin. It bounced up and tackled its twin bedpost with a speed so
blinding that it took what seemed like a couple of seconds for anyone
to process exactly just what had happened. Bedlam ensued. Young
school-aged boys giddily jumped around like, well, young, giddy
school-aged boys. Super Dave shook his head and smiled with unsurprised
surprise. The mom bowling on the lane next to us had a look of new
appreciation for bowling and bowlers, possibly even elevating us
in her mind to the same status as a local state fair rodeo. Perhaps
most significantly, the guy at the desk actually looked up from
his want ads.
After that, the 9-year-old boy on the lane next to us couldn't ask
me enough questions about bowling. I told him about leagues and
the importance of practice and how many bowling balls I own. I told
him that I had started bowling when I was about his age and spent
a lot of time practicing to be able to reach the point I am now…leaving
out the part about being a has-been former regional part-time casher,
of course. But there was no denying the fact that he definitely
thought I was a pretty cool dude, which I'm fairly certain is quite
a rare feat in bowling these days. As we talked, however, I did
begin to sense a bit of a look on his mom's face that read either,
"Please stop encouraging my son to be a bowler" or "I'm making a
mental note of your face so I can check the local database of known
child sex offenders to make sure you're not on it as soon as I get
home."
Sensing this, I cut my conversation with the boy short, but not
without offering him some free games that I had in my bowling bag.
The look on his face was positively priceless. It's so rare to see
a look of pure thanks on a kid of that age…believe me, after buying
my kids almost the entire set of Batman Legos for their latest birthdays
(to the point where my living room now looks like a Tim Burton fever
dream) and still not glimpsing that look even once, I know. It was
a great feeling to be able to see that look reflected back to me
from someone else. And it made me remember why, despite all of the
pain and struggle that has gone into becoming a bowler and working
in the bowling industry, I'm thankful to have made the choice I
did.
To check out the latest episode of The Bowling Show >>>
Click Here
To check out my new book Livin' The Dream: How to Get What You
Want, Find True Meaning and Save the World by Bowling! >>>
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See you next week!
Jason Thomas,
jason@jasonthomasbowling.com
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