Bowled Over

You know you're getting old when a group of pensioners try and get you to join their group. In my quest to get fit and not die of boredom while doing so, I had wandered into the local ten-pin bowling alley. I haven't thrown a ball down a lane for over ten years. Inside, the only people were a noisy group of disreputable looking pensioners. Hell's grannies, mostly unable to bend, were lobbing ten-pound balls from waist-height onto polished and protesting wood. The ball would back-spin and weave serenely down the lane, eventually meeting and tumbling a few pins. In triumph, the bowler would then turn gingerly and high-five her companions in careful slow motion.  

I stood at the back, coffee in hand, observing all this while flinching at each crushing blow of ball dropped upon wood. But I'd been spotted. The blue-rinse girls were throwing me coy smiles as they hefted heavy balls in their fragile hands. A gentleman in a recklessly anti-establishment brown cardigan approached me. Very soon I had all the information I needed to join in the groups weekly activities and, despite protesting the fact I still worked and wasn't as yet actually retired, was encouraged to come along any lunch time. And I have to say the group as a whole were having a ball. Several in fact. 

Leaving them to it, I found a quiet lane and began throwing my own balls down an alley. And very painful it was too. Now, I usually throw a sixteen pound ball, but decided to start easy with a fourteen pound specimen. I very nearly fell over on my first throw and by the end of that first game, decided to swallow my pride and throw a child's bright pink ten-pound ball instead. Despite this embarrassment, the gentleman with the aggressive cardigan was back at my elbow, praising my technique and encouraging me to join his 'free-wheeling' group. By the third and last game, I was into my stride, knocking four strikes and six 9's and spares to get a 174 game. Not bad for this old man. Suddenly I'm the Fonze and the blue rinse crowd are the girls from Grease. Heyyyy....