Once Upon a Time

Growing up, I bowled and played miniature golf a lot.  It started off as pity come-alongs, my sisters and their dates bringing me with, probably at the insistence of my mother.  In high school, I bowled on Sundays with my brother-in-law Bill, my reward for being such a good honors’ student (who couldn’t get a date for the life of him).  The miniature golf course was next door to Miami Bowl, but I never did both on the same day.

The bowling continued into college and beyond, into parenthood.  My style never changed in all that time.  I start by rolling a straight ball, which three games in will start angling right to left; I have no idea why.  On the South Side, we were all descended from Fred Flintstone, not the twinkle toes so much as underhanding the ball halfway down the lane.  As for mini-golf, it was a great and fairly cheap date. 

With Clare, we did mini-golf (I refuse to say putt-putt) enough as a family for her to want to do it on dates, too, but nowadays try and find someplace that’s still open.  Bowling went out of fashion, too, but it’s come back as a hip and expensive night out.  I know I never paid more than a dollar a line (and am pretty sure it used to be fifty cents).  With Clare in grade school, it was pushing $3 a line.  She loved going to the Mount Clare for obvious reasons, until a few years ago the owners decided they couldn’t make a go of it.  Condos stand where the Flintstones once rolled.

The one thing I did Clare hasn’t, at least not yet, was play croquette.  Don’t ask me how a bunch of teenagers in the Bungalow Belt on the South Side of Chicago started playing a game more associated with the leisure class, but we did, in our friend Bob’d backyard.  What you have to know about that yard is it sprawled into another dimension.  It had to, what with a junk car and a rowboat squeezed into a tight city lot.

But when I think of it, the yard went on forever, allowing us to walk and wallop at our pleasure.  There was no greater joy this side of wiffle ball than to knock your opponent’s ball into the weeds (Bob was an indifferent lawn mower, and his parents were indifferent homeowners).  I’m pretty sure that part of the yard was in fact African savannah.  You absolutely did not want to end up there.

Croquette went on the four years of high school, after which we focused more on bowling (and poker).  I can’t even remember how to keep score anymore, but those weeds and that rowboat hazard.  Some things you don’t forget.