Bowling

I was a lousy bowler and my average was usually around 155-160 with an occasional 200 game. 232 being the best I ever threw.

I had a buddy that asked me to bowl on his team. It was half way through the league and I was taking the place of a Millwright I worked with because he was such an obnocous ass. He would get drunk and hit on the wives and pat wateresses on the butt and such and they got tired of it. He was kicked out of the league.

The team I was on was a fun team and winning didn’t mean diddly. We would mess with eachother and laugh and raise hell and the other teams would laugh riight along with us. They liked us because bowling against us was almost a garentee of at least three points. We were so far in last place, toward the end of the season, we had eight weeks left, that I stopped and figured it out. If everyone on the league, the whole league except our team was on an airplane and it crashed with no survivors,we would still take last place. We were at least 33 games in last place but we had a ball.

The team captain, John had the most beautiful ball you could imagine. I meant the way he bowled. His approach was flawless and his release was perfect,. You could never hear the ball when it hit the alley. His hook was just fantastic, it would roll down the right side and nicely hook in at a sharp angle. Perfect. Only problem is, he never hit the same place twice in a night. Absolutely sucked. It amazed people how such a perfect approach and ball delivery could hit so few pins. The rest of us on the team had an excuse because we would have the watress busy all night delivering legal adult beverages. Not John. He just sucked.

I will try to explain what high-low doubles are. Once or twice a season the averages of everyone was assembled. There woud be compittion with two men on a team. The person with the highest average and the person with the lowest average were partners. And so it went toward the middle. If a poor bowler had a half way decient night he an his high average partner could do well. They would bowl with their regular teams but at the end of the night everyones games were totaled and the winning two man team took the kitty, which could be a couple hundred dollars. That was a lot of money! It was a big league and most people didn’t know many of the others.

Well it was High-low doubles night and we had our usual lousy night. I swear that I won a game aginst my buddy with a 118 game. We laughed so hard about that but I took the buck. Anyway after the bowling a guy came running down our way saying, “Who is John Wright? Who is John Wright?” He was so dang excited. I was laughing and asked why. He told me that he was Johns partner in the High-low doubles and he had just thrown his best game ever! He had thrown a 223 and if John had just made his average they had a chance to win the jackpot!! I started laughing and yelled. “Hey John. Your partner wants to see you!” I looked around and John was hunkered down in the seats! The bastud was hiding, can you believe that? I yelled, laughing all the time, “Hey John, tell your partner what you threw today” The guy ran to John and asked, “Man, what did you get?”

I am laughing my butt off as I type this after all these years because I can still see the look on that poor suckers face when John said--------82!!! Baaaaaahhahahahahahahahaha NOBODY throws an 82 unless that dang pinboy is screwing with you and that was in days after pinboys!

The guy just looked at us and slowly walked off. I rode John about that for years….