Today, I was privileged to have as my guest at Westgate Lanes one of my out-of-state friends from the BowlingFans.com site, who usually uses the nick “MikeHL” in the chat. My other originally online-only friend, Al from Friday night, was to join us, but he emailed me this morning that his allergies were bad and he didn’t want to bowl.
Mike arrived with the marathon tournament in progress, so one of the first things I did after we got acquainted was escort him down to the high-numbered end of the center and pointed to him some of the notables that were involved in the tournament. We talked mostly bowling, but also the other reason for his visit, over pizza, after which we grabbed a free pair of lanes, which happened to have the shot the tournament was using (“Middle Road”).
I started the best of the two of us, with four in a row, before suffering a couple of open frames late for a 199. You’d think having the home alley advantage would have helped me, but, in the second game, Mike actually posted the best game of the session, a 205, using mostly his 2001-vintage Blue Hammer, his “go-to” ball on the usual wood lanes where he is. I had the better third game, but we both struggled; however, both of us ended with strikes, prompting me to say what I usually say when I strike on the last shot of a bad game: “All’s well that ends well.”
Mike told me afterward that he enjoyed this visit, which I agreed with, and we both hope to do this again, possibly in the summer. For the “pics or it didn’t happen” crowd, I did have my friend Si get the following photo after Mike and I bowled; it was taken with my pocket video camera, but a slight hand movement caused the photo to come out a bit blurry, so my apologies:
The Tenth Board 