Rant #2,475: Keep the Ball Rolling

Bowling is back in New York State, and it couldn't come at a better time.

After around six months of strikes and spares abstinence, bowling centers were given a pardon this week by Governor Cuomo, and bowlers were able to go to their local lanes starting this past Monday, with many centers opening later n the week.

I can't wait to go back and bowl a game--even though I have not bowled at all for at least 15 years or so.

My son is a bowler. He has an average in the 120s, and it is the one sport that he has loved to play since he was a little kid.

More importantly, through the league that he bowls in, it is essentially his only source for social interplay with people his own age, young men and women with varying levels of disabilities.

The league he is in is ultra-competitive, and some of the young men and women there are actually excellent bowlers, regularly rolling in the 200s.

The kibosh was put on my son's league way back in February, when the pandemic hit, and bowling establishments have been waiting for a reprieve, and they got it this week.

Of course, things will be different in the alleys now that they can be open.

Every other lane will be used to reinforce social distancing, and equipment that is used from the alley--namely balls and shoes--will be sanitized after each use.

Temperature checks will be taken at the door, and your party cannot socialize with other parties while bowling.

Some of the food areas in the alley will be in use--such as the snack bar--but there will be various rules and regulations governing the ordering and eating of food on the lanes.

And as far as I know, all bars within the bowling establishments will be shuttered, again to reinforce social distancing.

At some alleys, you will have to make an online appointment to bowl, while at others, you can just walk in and bowl whenever you want.

But i do believe that every alley has installed both a cashless payment system and barriers between the lanes.

Why did it take so long for bowling alleys to get the OK to open?

They were somehow lumped together with gyms and movie theaters, and while I can see the connection to a certain extent, I can't see why it took this long for them to get the "Go" sign.

Bowling is one of the most socially active of all the sports. Whether playing one on one or as part of a team, bowlers fraternize with others probably more than any other athletic participants, going from lane to lane, eating, having a beer, needling others ... and that is part of what the sport so special.

Gyms and movie theaters are also social places, in a different way, so they all were lumped together as one entity. But this week, the governor loosened the restrictions of bowling alleys and gyms, but in New York State, you still cannot go out to a theater to watch a movie.

Back to the lanes ...

The bowling alleys now being open gives me hope that the bowling leagues will begin again in the fall. My son needs the league, not just for the bowling, but for the social interaction.

My son is very quiet, doesn't speak much, but when he sees his fellow bowlers, he will be in such a better place than he is in now. I mean, he hasn't seen these peers for going on six months right now, and by the time the league starts, if it does, it will be going on eight months.

It will also give us something else to do outside of the house, a fun athletic pursuit that we can do together.

I haven't bowled in years, and I went into our basement to find my bowling bag, which contains my ball--nearly 50 years old, from the early 1970s--and my shoes.

We must have thrown out both the bag and the shoes, but I found my ball, all dust covered and really old looking, but I put my fingers in it--I have gained weight since I was a regular bowler--and it fit perfectly. So although my stomach expanded during the past nearly 50 years, my fingers did not.

I am going to try and bowl and few games with my son sometime soon. There are so many things swirling around our house right now that I can't say when we will get to our local lanes.

But we will get there sooner rather than later, I hope, and I really don't care how I do; I care about the smile on my son's face when he gets to the lane and throws that first ball.

That will be better than bowling a 300 game for me, and especially for him.