Fourteen…

I am now fourteen years old and a maturing young teenager with hopeful dreams for this school year to be a normal year, whatever that means. I have reached the upper class of my junior high school which means that I will be advancing to high school next year.

My Saturday mornings are also now busy with my new youth bowling league that I joined with my new friends from the trailer park.

When I arrived at the bowling alley for the start of the youth bowling league season, I was surprised to see the bowling alley filled with so many young bowlers of all ages. Every lane was dedicated to the Saturday morning league.

I was new to bowling and participating in a league. Skill level wasn’t a separation factor. I was going to be placed in the teen league along with many other teens including my two friends from the trailer park.

 And if I remember correctly, I would be on the team with the older brother. His younger brother was on a different team in the younger division of the teen league.

And guess what. That boy with the squeaky voice from my junior high school was in our teen league too. His voice was still squeaky, but he was much taller now. And he was a good bowler. Evidently, he had been bowling for some time.

Before the Saturday morning youth bowling league started, my mom said that I could get a bowling ball like my two friends had. WOW! I was excited to have my own bowling ball.

When the pro shop, that was what it was called, opened that morning I went in with my friends to pick out a ball. The pro measured my hand to know where to drill the holes for my fingers. Then he explained how I should grip the ball, in other words, where to put finger pressure for control.

They had me put my fingers in a ball that the pro called a conventional grip. Then he had me put my fingers in a ball with a new grip called a “fingertip grip” which felt weird. I said “conventional” and that is the grip I started with.

I will note that when I got better as the year progressed, I changed to fingertip grip.

This required a new ball and lots of begging with my mom to agree. After presenting all the reasons for getting a new bowling ball she did agree and it was back at the pro shop getting a new bowling ball that was nicer than the one I had. My mom said it was my Christmas gift.

There is a lot to the story of my early days learning to bowl.

With this new ball and a pair of bowling shoes I began to improve even faster. And I was becoming more competitive with myself to do better. Over the course of the league season, I did become much better.

I remember that by the middle of the season my average score was in the one forties. By the end of my first season bowling, I was averaging in the one sixties.

This was a big deal in the league. My friends from the trailer park were surprised by my quick improvement. And so were the coaches of the league. And my coaches would open a door for me to get another fifteen minutes of fame with my improvement.

And this improvement will set the stage for my future growth in this sport.

Now I will jump forward to January 1970. My bowling coach asked me if I would be interested in coming to the bowling alley on Saturday morning to help with the Professional Bowlers Association tournament final day of competition. I eagerly responded, “Yes.”

During the last week I met many of the pro’s during the practice session and learned a lot about what it was like to tour. And these were big name pro bowlers who were champions.

The television network had asked if some youth bowlers could participate in pre-show activities for the camera crew. My coach proposed that I and another boy participate in what was called a “Camera Warmup” before the start of the television broadcast. I would learn later that this was a big deal.

So, what is a “Camera Warmup.”

Basically, it meant that me and the other boy would be bowling on the lanes where the tournament championship would be decided while the camera operators would film us both on the lanes, doing our approach, releasing the bowling ball, and how our bowling balls would knock the pins down.

The lights were very bright and hot. I began to sweat. I would bet the professional bowlers would also sweat from the heat of the lights and the pressure of competing for a championship title.

My next fifteen minutes of fame came with the warming up of the cameras for “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” for the “Professional Bowlers Tour”. And the tournament was the “Showboat Invitational.”

I really loved the bright lights and the applause from the audience whenever I got a strike or made a spare. The spectators could watch me and the other boy on the TV monitors that were positioned throughout the bleacher areas.

This event started my love of being a competitor.

And one of my spares was when I slid the number six pin across to knock down the number seven pin. This is a difficult split to convert to a spare. My making the spare was broadcast on all the monitors set up through the bowling alley for the spectators to be able to watch the upcoming matches.

When I made this spare, the bowling alley roared with cheers and applause. I became a star at that moment.

And that is not the end of my making the spare.

When the opening scenes were played as the show began, I swear that they included my converting the Six Seven Split as a video clip on national television. My league friends knew it was my split conversion being shown because it was my bowling ball.

And each week we watched the tour to see if it was shown again.

Once again, I swear that my split conversion was featured during the tour season until an actual pro made it and that became the new footage.

This will always be a special moment in time for me. I was seen by hundreds of people achieving something difficult.

Also, during the school year my friends and I started to hang out at the bowling alley after school on many days of the week. It became our second home. It was comfortable.

On Wednesdays we went to Pizza Hut which was a short walk from the bowling alley for the “All-You-Can-Eat” pizza night. This was one of the best nights of the week and we were there every Wednesday.

We would sit in Pizza Hut for hours gobbling down slice after slice. We were teenagers with stomachs that never filled. And we also consumed lots of Pepsi with our slices. Sometimes the staff would make us pizzas with toppings we asked for.

And on other nights we hung out at the Der Wienerschnitzel, which was near to Pizza Hut, to consume the best hotdogs and chili dogs in Las Vegas. If you ever have had a Der Wienerschnitzel dog you know what I am talking about.

And then there was the snack bar at the bowling lanes. They served a French Dip that was incredible. This snack bar had some of the best quick food in the hotel. We would see players come in from the casino to grab a bite to eat.

Okay, you might be wondering why we were not at home during the school week. Well, my mom was always working late (that is what she claimed) in the vault, and my friend’s mom was busy playing some games in the casino at the Showboat Hotel, the same place where our youth bowling league was.

And many of the other junior high school kids we knew were also hanging out at the same places we were hanging out at. This is Las Vegas in the late nineteen sixties. Helicopter parenting didn’t exist. The only rules were to stay out of trouble and be home before nine-thirty.

We were responsible for getting our own dinner most nights.

Around nine we would gather our sweaters, coats and hats, if the weather was cool or cold outside, and then head home. My two friends and I would cross a very busy highway and trek across the desert to the entrance of the trailer park.

Since we lived so close, we were always traveling together, especially when it was dark. Not because of strangers. It was because of what could be lurking in the sand and tumbleweeds. We would cut through the desert most nights, especially when the moon was full.

So, most of the time when I would get home, my mom might be home, or she wouldn’t be home for another hour or so. Some nights I wouldn’t even see my mom until the next morning.

It was my responsibility to clean up for bed and for lights out. But my light was never out.

Yes, I still sleep with the lights on.

I’m still haunted…

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