An over-flow crowd at Two-Dees listening to a presidential candidate on the stump brought back memories–not of elections past, but of places and things. It’s fitting that the rally for Gen. Wes Clark was at Two-Dees, which used to be Siders, which used to be Floyd’s, which used to be the Vegas Bowl.
It’s been perhaps two decades since the 12-lane automated bowling alley gave way to a nightclub. Before the high-tech Vegas Bowl, bowling alleys relied on pinboys whose job was to pick up the pins and reset them again.
The older alley contained eight lanes and was reached through a hallway on the 500 block of Grand. The lanes lacked the automated feature of the Vegas Bowl. Everything was done by hand. Several pre-teen boys would fight over who got to set pins. The starting rate, in 1950, was seven cents a line. A line represented a complete game for an individual bowler, but more commonly two or three people used the same lane, and that could add up to three games, or 21 cents for an hour’s work.
Never content with the status quo, we sometimes played tricks on people, especially the manager, Frank, a man who was there just a short while. He was a real professional who usually bowled above 200. After “league nights,” he’d bet on a game of his own and usually win. One of us pinboys would be accorded the honor of setting pins for free. Noo-oo, cash would be too mundane. The fact that we got to set pins for a pro was payment enough, or so Frank explained.
Another boy, Carlos, and I each got assigned adjoining pits one Saturday night, as the manager and his friend used two lanes. After each throw, we placed the ball on a ramp and gave it an extra push so it would return to the bowler. Once, out of exhaustion–we’d already worked about 10 lines for league play–Carlos forgot to give the ball that extra shove. It faltered before reaching the bowlers station. Frank, realizing the ball might be heading back, quickly grabbed it and proceeded as if nothing had happened. Now it was my turn. Not only did I fail to push the ball, I actually gave it a backward spin. It cracked us up to see the ball make its way to the bowling station and spin right back. Because there were ramps on both ends, the ball came back in our direction and rolled back again. By that time, Carlos and I were soggy with (subdued) laughter.
The manager looked funny, straddling the gutters, shoeless to prevent scuffing the lane but still not daring to step on it, trying to retrieve the ball.
On the next throw, Carlos and I decided to put as much speed on the return ball as Frank had when he threw. This time, the boss was surprised that the ball became airborne and crashed into the others with enough force to send one of the smaller balls off the carousel, much like a billiard ball can set off a chain reaction.
Well, Frank was bowled over by our shenanigans. In an impressive show of rage, he removed his shoes. As was his pinchant, he made guttural sounds as he began the procession toward the pits, straddling the gutters while carrying his shoes. The shoes, we soon discovered, were ammunition. Frank hurled one at me, but the pinsetter machinery prevented my getting hit. This should never have happened, and we still blame the angry gods, but the second shoe, aimed at Carlos, got stuck in the grill. The laughter, which Carlos and I had previously kept in tow, became raucous, and we felt the same way fans must react during a basketball game when the shot that’s supposed to win the game instead gets stuck between the rim and the backboard.
Well, for laughing, Carlos and I were terminated on the spot. We’d already collected roughly a half dollar for our league work, and we got fired from the overtime job that didn’t pay anyway.
Carlos and I sweated out the morality of our antics, which started innocently but still were our fault. Rather than provide my father with the details, we told Carlos’ dad, who seemed level-headed.
“Aw, don’t worry about it,” he said. “Frank’ll forget all about it by Monday.”
With trepidation, we appeared at the bowling alley Monday. We acted as if nothing had happened, and the boss–to our shock–never even brought it up. Had he forgotten? Were Carlos and I such non-entities that our faces never registered? Regardless, we returned to our jobs.
But to be sure, the boss continued to gift us with the pleasure of pro-bono pin-setting when betting on his own games.