Duckpin Bowling

I'm feeling the old sports injury after five games of bowling on Wednesday night. I hadn't bowled in a few years so I forgot how sore my forearm gets after just three games. Typing isn't bad but even gripping a pencil to write is tough.

But this post won't be about sports injuries. This post is about bowling. I was actually on my high school bowling team.

My bowling is similar to my tennis. My pedigree includes some experience but I received no formal training in either sport. My grandmother taught me how to love tennis and a decade of losing to my dad prepared me to compete in high school. Bowling I also picked up from my dad who was a professional duck pin bowler for a few years in Maryland. Like any good story, I'd like to embellish it a bit for you but he actually did a pretty good job of that himself describing himself as an up-and-coming star before he left for his mission. His name was often in the Washington Post with his scores and he made a few bucks at it to help pay for college.

Unless you are an old(er);) man from the northeast you may not be familiar with duck pins. A duckpin ball is a little larger than a softball so you grip it around the exterior rather than using finger holes as you would with a traditional bowling ball. The pins are arranged on the lane identical to normal bowling but the pins are a little shorter and lighter so that it is more difficult to achieve a strike in combination with the smaller ball. You track the score similarly. However, due to the difficulty you are allowed three attempts instead of two in each frame. You can read more at wikipedia.

So add another to my bucket list - go duck pin bowling at least once in my lifetime.