Rolling Back the Years: My Return to Bowling

Pins, Pickleball, and a Personal Revival

Was the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan reading my mind?

I was contemplating a blog post about my resurgent interest in bowling—but Rick preempted me with his column in today’s Trib, “When billiards and bowling were all the rage.” At first, that short-circuited my writing plan since I didn’t want to look like a copycat. But after reading Rick’s column, I realized I won’t be copying him at all.

Rick wrote a nice piece detailing the growth and decline of bowling’s popularity, including a little poke at pickleball, today’s “fastest-growing sport in the country for the third year in a row!” Rick’s history of bowling begins with a 1939 photo of four stylish lady bowlers, but as I read, I never got the sense he had ever picked up a ball himself. That’s why my experience and post are different.

While I wasn’t born with a bowling ball in my hand (my parents never bowled), much of my tween years in Rogers Park were spent in bowling alleys. From Howard Bowl at the far northeast to Nortown Bowl at the southwest edge of my neighborhood, rarely a week went by without my rolling three games. I enjoyed kid’s leagues, winner-take-all pots, and even my 12th birthday bowling party, slip-sliding down the alley with friends, barely an adult in sight. I won that winner-take-all pot once, a 163 game the pinnacle of my youthful forays.

In time, bowling faded for me. Barb never enjoyed the smokey atmosphere in most bowling alleys, and I lost touch with my bowling buddies. But a few years ago, just before COVID-19, a family friend named Marty, an ardent bowler, asked if I would like to join him for a few games.

I excavated my bowling bag, ball, and shoes from a basement closet and met Marty at the neighborhood alley. In those first games, I felt clumsy and awkward. I had forgotten my bowling etiquette, and every other ball seemed headed for the gutter. But despite the setbacks I enjoyed myself.

We had to wait for COVID to pass before we could go at it again, but now I join Marty on the alleys almost every week. My scores have steadily improved as I follow Marty’s tips not to throw across my body and to follow through on my release. What I lack in consistency, I make up in determination. The sight and sound of pins tumbling to the deck after a perfectly thrown strike ball is electrifying. And those are getting more and more frequent.

I know bowling doesn’t have the upscale popularity and cachet of pickleball. My pickleball friends laugh in astonishment when I tell them I bowl. They believe I am joshing with them. I am not. Rick Kogan implies that bowling is dead, but for me, the sport has been resurrected.

I want to keep those pins exploding. Marty, you will be seeing a whole lot more of me!

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