Saturday mornings were the best, not only no school…but cartoons that truly were awesome. Mighty Mouse, Banana Splits, Underdog, Dudley Do Right (and his horse’s name, was horse) Bullwinkle, just to name a few! Once toons were over, ya climbed out of yer jammies and got ready to go bowling!
Saturday bowling was only 25 cents a game. So mom would give us $5 and we would walk down to the bowling alley toting mom’s ball, (we wanted to use mom’s ball, thought it would be cooler) each of us holding a handle of the case and walked the 12 blocks to the bowling alley.
My brother was about six and I was nine, so with that heavy ball, it took awhile. When there, we paid for french fries, pink peppermint lozenges, and the rest into bowling. At 25 cents a lane, it went a long way. We got to the point we were pretty good bowlers! And my mom was happy it took us forever to get there, and forever to get home!
Bowling was one of the few sports I got pretty darn good at. It came back to haunt me in high school though. Our PE class had gone to the bowling alley. And of course I being the mouth I am, made it pretty clear that was one course I was gonna pass with flying colors.
So, Coach Pilfold singled me out, told the class to gather round. If I got less than a strike, I had to do 10 laps in class the next day. If I got a strike, I didn’t have to do anything, but the whole class had to do 20 laps. Oh that stunk, what do ya do?
I hated running, but I didn’t want my whole class mad. Yet, I was a good bowler and felt pretty confident about the strike. Well what it boiled down to, was most of my class didn’t really like me anyway—I was always the weird kid—but I could bowl. So I threw a strike and felt somewhat guilty. Coach said good job…which I guess she knew I would do that.
In the 60s and 70s we had so many awesome things to do. Bowling was one of the favorites, and Mr. Fortner was great about encouraging the kids, and teaching them the right way to bowl. And behave.
Its true, it does take a village to raise a town’s kids.