Accent on Living
IT IS no longer permissible to speak of a bowling alley. “Alley” has become “lane,” a much classier word, and several alleys under one roof are now a bowladrome or a bowlorama, or perhaps simply Nirvana Lanes. Any sports-page writer using the word “alley” would be dealt with quickly by the publisher, for bowling — I assume it will still be all right, for a time at least, to call it that — is big business today, bigger even than miniature golf proved to be in the Great Depression of the thirties. Neither game calls for more than a minimal use of the brain, bowling plant investment is considerable, and the wretched pin boy, who was quite undependable and who expected to be paid for his work, is now replaced by machinery. The result is that, while Detroit is reporting layoffs, the bowling world is all belching chimneys and aroundthe-clock shifts. Who would ever have thought that a mere pin boy could have touched off, by his inadequacies and consequent disappearance, so profound a change in American life?
Today’s bowler needs a special pair of shoes and a shirt suitably inscribed with the name of his favorite lanes or the league team on which he “rolls,” as the TV commentators like to put it. He must also have a bag in which to carry his personal custom-drilled bowling ball — ideally, an all-leather bag in twotone color effects, though canvas with fancy leather trim will do if he has to outfit himself on the cheap. Bowling does not seem to have developed special pants thus far, but surely the suppliers will be able to establish something like leotards or toreador pants; all that knee bending that goes into the final slide calls for a more professional concept than just ordinary tailoring, and further dualcolor schemes on the pants would add to the ton of the costume.
The bowler has a wide choice of occupations that seem to sponsor teams in the innumerable leagues that have sprung up: a plumber, beauty salon, turkey farm, diner, brewery, and garage league, to mention a few in the columns of a New Jersey paper. Police bowl against firemen; and in the Union County Building Trades League, there is competition among bricklayers, glaziers, and sheet metal workers.
It was inevitable that bowling, like all games in the United States, should become a “spectator sport” and be taken up by TV, so that one can now relax in his chair and watch disapprovingly while better bowlers than himself strive vainly for the 300 figure that the spectator knows he could attain if he chose to take the trouble. The real burden in these circumstances is carried by the sports announcer, who is forever in the position of announcing to his audience something that they have already just witnessed for themselves. “Another strike!” shouts the announcer. “He did it again!” Since bowling amounts to nothing more than that — he did or he didn’t — the announcer tries to vary his chatter by reiterating the score. We already know that, too, but there is really nothing else he can say. (See “Tennis on TV” by René MacColl, December, 1958, Atlantic.) So he tells us that Schmidt still leads Spumoni by seven pins; Spumoni is seven pins behind. He’ll have to overcome that lead of Schmidt’s, or he’ll lose. Schmidt, if he can only keep that seven-pin margin, will be the winner. Seven pins, that is what — but hold on! Schmidt is now eight pins ahead! Spumoni, who had needed seven to catch up, now needs eight. Things are looking tough for Spumoni, etc., etc.
CHARLES W. MORTON