In How-To Wisconsin, we do that annoying internet thing where we explain how to do something fairly simple (in this case, something Wisconsin-y) but precede it with a needlessly long personal story.
Some of my first memories are of bowling. No, scratch that. Some of my first memories involve meeting my younger brother in the hospital soon after he was born. And walking through the woods to get to kindergarten. Oh, and that time I ordered some Weekly Reader books without my parents knowing and when one of the books showed up in the mail (Judy Blume’s Freckle Juice, I believe) my parents got super mad because we couldn’t afford it.
But other than that, bowling.
I was in a youth bowling league as a kid. I couldn’t have been older than 10. Maybe 12. I biked to my hometown bowling alley every Saturday morning with my bowling shirt and my bowling shoes stuffed in my backpack. I remember on the first day, immediately after teams were picked (I was picked last, natch), our captain announced the name of our team. “We’re the Midnight Rockers!” he exclaimed. Hell yeah. I thought it was the coolest name I had ever heard. The Midnight Rockers! (Years later my friends and I repurposed the name for our very own Spinal Tap-esque mockumentary about a washed-up hair metal band. Though I think we changed the spelling to “Midnyte.”)
Speaking of hair metal, those bands provided the constant soundtrack to our Saturday morning league. It was the mid- to late-’80s, after all. Groups like Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Def Leppard, Poison, FireHouse, Warrant, Cinderella, Whitesnake, White Lion, Great White, the list goes on and on. I don’t know if the kids were plugging the jukebox with that stuff or if it was the owner. I remember he was a big, burly, and nice dude who ran the bowling alley with his teenage sons. I also remember that he smoked like a chimney. Smoking indoors! Around a bunch of children! While listening to hair metal! What a time to be alive!
Anyway, to this day, whenever I hear “Here I Go Again” I feel like I’m about to bowl a strike.
My bowling memories stretch far beyond my tween years. Back in the late ’00s, a hometown family friend cooked up a great idea: When everyone was home for the holidays, instead of going Black Friday shopping or whatever, why didn’t we all go bowling? And pick teams, and keep score, and take pictures, and write down funny quotes, and get good and trashed? Our parents were still fairly young and spry, and us “kids” didn’t have kids of our own (yet). Let’s skip the traditional holiday baloney and throw a few rocks!
Thus the Holiday Classics were born. Every major holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter), an ever-growing crew of family, friends, and holiday orphans convened for a long afternoon of bowling. The fun began with everyone arguing about the elaborate team draft (the winning team from the previous Classic remained a team), and everyone arguing about who hadn’t chipped in yet for the pitchers of Busch Light. Then we’d bowl three games, sometimes four. The family friend who came up with the idea eventually had a trophy made, and at the end of each year she had it engraved with the names of the winning teams. My brother kept ridiculously detailed stats and put together photo- and quote-filled “newsletters” for each Classic. As the years went on, the binder where he kept physical copies of the newsletters grew to “George Costanza wallet” size.
As for me, I documented all the action with my trusty video camera. Yep, I was the dork who filmed everything. I eventually put together a 45-minute “documentary” that covered a full year of Classics, from Thanksgiving 2008 to Thanksgiving 2009. It was a fine piece of work, if I do say so myself, complete with flashy credits and a rocking soundtrack. I still have a digital copy on my laptop, and every now and then I bust it out at current-day family gatherings. I’d love to include it here but A.) the soundtrack in question is one big copyright strike, and B.) I’m guessing 99% of the people featured in the doc wouldn’t want their drunken bowling shenanigans from 17 years ago posted online. But here’s a screenshot of me!
Oh, where does the time go? It all moves too fast, doesn’t it? Too fast, too fast. Sigh. Anyway, here’s how to score bowling by hand:
1. Write down how many pins you knocked down on your first ball in the top-left space of the frame. Write down how many pins you knocked down on your second ball in the top-right space. Add them up, add that number to the number in your previous frame (if any), and write that number in the big space below.
2. If you knocked down all 10 pins on your first ball (a “strike”), write an “X” in the top-right space. Your turn is over. Your score for this frame will be 10 plus the total number of pins you knock down on your next TWO balls. Plus the number in your previous frame, of course.
3. If you knocked down fewer than 10 pins on your first ball but knocked down the rest of them on your second ball (a “spare”), write down the number of pins you knocked down on your first ball in the top-left space, and write an “/” in the top-right space. Your turn is over. Your score for this frame will be 10 plus the number of pins you knock down on your next SINGLE ball. Plus the number in your previous frame, of course.
4. In the 10th frame, if you fail to knock down all 10 pins in two balls, your turn (and game) is over. Score per usual. If you bowl a spare on your second ball, throw one more ball. Your turn (and game) is over. Score per usual. If you bowl a strike on your first ball, throw two more balls. Your turn (and game) is over. Score per usual.
Happy bowling!
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