A Rant & A Rave

“You’re goddamn right I’m living in the fucking past!” – Walter Sobchek, The Big Lewbowski

In the grand scheme of things that make me happy but I don’t do very often anymore, bowling and coloring are right up there in the Top 20.  And on that note: a rant first followed by a rave.

The Rant, also know as This Is Bowling, There Are Rules

Color me annoyed (which probably looks like yellow-green) when Dave forwarded me an article about upscale bowling. Can those words even co-exist in a sentence together? It appears upscale bowling is an up and coming trend in New York City. Complete with hipsters, egregious lane fees, dress codes (we’ll get to that in a moment) and waiter service. Dave calls it hipster bowling asshattery, meaning only an asshat would roll like this. To the asshats, I add asshole, wipe, and munch. Only a jackass would denigrate bowling by making it upscale. In the great words of Walter Sobchek (who doesn’t roll on Shabbos ), “this is bowling, there are rules.” And people, those rules do not include 10 frames for $13 and a plate of sushi. Jiminey Crickets!

Dave and I come from bowling families. Our mothers and fathers were in leagues. Dave’s brother was a super-good bowler in his hey-day and Dave was a bit of a bowlig prodigy when he was a kid (he has a wicked curve). We both learned how to bowl in grade school. We know how to keep score, manually, not with fancy automatic scoring. We have bowling trophies. We have been known to bowl on the weekends, just for fun. Dave, in fact, has his dad’s old bowling ball bag and he bought a new ball about 10 years ago when he was in a winter league (p.s. they finished in first place). I, in fact, had my own gold/white marble Brunswick bowling ball in eighth grade and can still hold my own on the lanes, though my teams never took top honors. Regardless….We. Know. How. To. Roll.

I learned how to bowl at the great Heid’s Lanes in White Oak, suburb on the northwest side of Cincinnati, close enough to the true West Side of Cincinnati where the vaunted Western Bowl, host of the 2009 Hoinke Classic, is located.  Before I was bowling, I was at the bowling alley when my mom bowled in her league. At Heid’s you could always count on having a burger cooked up and thrown on a tiny paper plate with two dill pickle slices — the pickle juice always soaked one side of the bun, making it inedible. I hate pickles as much as I hate the idea of hoity-toity bowling. Or you could get a bag of Grippo potato chips. You could check out the scores of all the leagues and the averages of all the bowlers and choose the team names you liked the best. The Spare Parts. The Alleycats. The High Rollers. Dave’s team was the CB Buddies. I can’t recall the name of my team because, being the girls we were, I think we changed it every week.

My mom taught me how to keep score while she helped keep score for my grade school team along with some of the other moms. She helped me understand what strikes and spares were worth and how to do the math (a miracle in its own right). Other afternoons, my dad would pick me up from bowling (because yes, we learned how to bowl before we learned how to drive a car). He’d stand up in the bar area above the lanes and I’d take my turn. His big lesson that every one of my siblings knows: thumb to the nose. This means that when you release the ball, the tip of your thumb should be aligned with your nose. That means you delivered the ball properly. I had some sort of bizarro curve so I had to stand a little left of the center dot to hit the one pin and hopefully start some sort of beyond-my-grasp scientific geometric reaction that knocked the rest down.

Anyhow, the bowling alley smelled exactly how a bowling alley should smell. Which is not pleasant. It’s a mix of talcum powder, lane polish, foot odor, smoke, fried food, and amonia-based cleaning products that are supposed to cover up all of the other offensive odors. If you put 10 smells in front of me, I could pick out bowling alley instantly. Back in the day, we rolled with 8-pound balls before graduating to the big 10- and 12-pound rocks. Before I had my own ball, I’d select one from the racks behind the lanes. Most of them were inscribed with names of other bowlers or, sometimes, a team name. I had a favorite black bowling ball that had a chip between the two finger holes. It was always easy to find and it was just the right size. What are these hipster bowlers bowling with — Swarovski-encrusted Ebonites and fur-lined AMFs? I don’t get it. My Brunswick was a 12-pounder. Once, I got my second finger stuck in the ball and wrenched it something good. Next time you see me, check out the middle finger on my right hand – it’s been crooked ever since. Hmmm…this gives me an idea. Maybe I’ll go to the wretched upscale bowling alleys and show them my middle finger….hmmmm.

Of course, there’s also the shoe factor. Who doesn’t love a red, white and blue traditional bowling shoe?

Believe me, I could go on and on and on with this rant but I have a rave to get to so I’ll just leave it at the fact that bowling alleys represent much more than bowling. And people who know bowling as Dave and I know bowling understand that those lanes are just as much about the game as they are about community. It was a place where people gathered, took a break from work but included their families and friends in the fun. And it was cheap entertainment, most folks could afford three games at $1.95 a pop. None of this $13 per game crap. And none of this “that working class guy is miserable in that old dirty bowling alley.” Baloney. That working class guy and all the rest of us are just fine with our run-down lanes where you need to call someone to re-set the pins every other frame. That’s how we like to roll and don’t go messing with it. My mom and dad weren’t elite bowlers by any stretch but being elite was never the point.  And being seen on the lanes in your retro-inspired bowling shirt wasn’t the point either. The point was spending time with friends and maintaining community, as evidenced in Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. As my friend Ann Scanlan says, “Being on a bowling league was part social, part pride, but mostly it was about getting together and blowing off some steam with friends.” Brilliant, Ann. This is bowling, there are rules. And the rules shouldn’t include bouncers and appletinis. Just get together and throw a few.

A Rave, also known as Happiness is Burnt Sienna

I have a box of Crayolas and I have coloring books. So what if I’m 42? Crayons are awesome. Coloring is therapeutic. There is nothing like a new set of crayons and a coloring book just waiting to be filled up with Sea Green and Cadet Blue and Orange. Do you know any kid who would turn down a new box of crayons? Even the crapola offbrand ones work in a pinch. Coloring rules. Half the time, I’d rather get the children’s menu at restaurants because it usually comes with a set of crayons. (p.s. If I ever own a restaurant, you will have crayons and coloring surfaces.)

Another blogger did a great piece on the original Crayola colors. Sadly, I forgot poor violet when I tried to name the Original 8. You can find the full Crayola color chronology here.

I was a little disappointed to discover that Mulberry, Maize, Raw Umber and my good friend Thistle have been retired. What are they doing now, I wonder? Hanging out talking about how they colored the hell out of those giant coloring books back in the day? I’m sure Raw Umber is talking about his glory days as the best color for bricks and sometimes animals like the fox or maybe a shaggy dog. And what about Maize? Well, he’s telling stories about how he was the perfect choice for dirty blond hair and also various fields of wheat and even corn if yellow was being used by a fellow coloring friend. He was the old standby, yep. As for Mulberry, she is telling those young whippersnappers  like Hot Magenta and Wild Strawberry that they can’t hold a waxy tip to her multipurposeness — why, back in her time in the box she was at the ready for clown cheeks, flowers, bedspreads, lollipops, lips, hair bows, dresses, magic carpets and the like.

Good old Thistle? Well, she’s too shy to talk about her fame as a lesser-used but always reliable color, especially for fantasy scenes that included unicorns or fairies and the like.  Thistle doesn’t like to brag but she knows that she has her own fan club.

And let me just say I will voice my serious displeasure if Crayola ever tries to retire Periwinkle or Copper. I will protest in a most colorful way. Because who doesn’t remember opening a new box of 68 or 72 perfectly-shaped, un-used tips and spotting Copper shining away in the back row? Now that’s brilliant.