In Just One of the Guys (the eighties comedy about a teenage woman dressing up like a teenage boy to get respect and the hijinx that ensue), the physical education teacher is obessessed with bowling. He tells the main character Terry, very sincerely, “..it’s more than a game, it’s the ultimate challenge. One man, one ball, 10 pins.”

This is played for laughs, obviously, because bowling is arguably the least athletic sport one can participate in. But the teacher has a point. While the objective is easy – throw the ball down the lane, knock over the pins – there is a great divide between the good bowler and the great bowler, the bowler capable of a perfect game or scores in the upper two hundreds.

I consider myself to be pretty good at sports of little consequence. I’m a good dart player, a decent pool player, an above average ping pong player, and a kick ass cornhole player. So, it follows that I would be good at bowling too. And I am. (I have no problem bragging here, it’s bowling.) But I am just good. I usually roll around 135-145. I’ve been bowling for most of my life but I have broken the 200 mark only two times. My high is a 220.

That last sentence is why I thought about writing about this. It’s hitting me now. I’ve been bowling for most of my life.

It starts in grade school. Someone has a birthday party at the lanes (when they aren’t hip enough for a roller skating birthday party) and we all get introduced to the sport. I went to grade school before the days of bumpers, so, we took our gutters like adults.

Senior year of high school my friends’ high school had the tradition of Senior Bowling where all of the seniors would go bowling on a Wednesday night (I think it was Wednesday) and talk about senioritis and where we were going to college. In my own high school, I was on the Executive Council (like student body president but snobbier) and we would make up excuses about things we had to plan so we could leave school grounds and roll a game or two.

In college, I kept my skills up, bowling every now and then. And when I got to New York, The Gutter opened. That place was a revelation. An authentic bowling alley was bought, disassembled, transported to Brooklyn, and reassembled. It was a time capsule from my childhood. I bowled in a league there for a few years, often staying past midnight to finish a game.

In 1996 came Kingpin. In 1998 came The Big Lebowski. We revered and quoted these movies. Bowling lends itself to humor because it’s an innocent game. People taking it seriously is inherently comedic. In reality, it’s not that it’s silly to take it seriously, it’s that, as a bowler, you know how seriously to take it.

Maybe it’s an upstate thing. Maybe it’s an Ohio thing. Or Pennsylvania. (Both states were rumored to be the source of The Gutter’s bowling alley.) I once had a friend tell me that Rochester was part of the Rust Belt. A co-worker once assumed my love of bowling came from a working class background (he himself was from Milwaukee).

I was offended in both cases.

Bowling, more than anything else I know, sits almost perfectly in the middle of the irony/sincerity spectrum. I know it’s just bowling but it’s fun, so, who cares?

Also, I don’t have the patience for golf.