Laughing with Di -0 April 2020

Family fun day at a local bowling establishment! Not having participated in the sport for a while, I found it to be a whole different ball game (or is it a bowl game?).
Let’s have a laugh.
Nowadays, it seems no one is entrusted with the privilege of actually keeping score. The “desk folk” enter your name – moniker, soubriquet, tag, appellation, handle, alias, pseudonym – that will appear on the screen. No scoring knowledge or math needed (yay!); no spare or strike marks; no pencil erasures. Automation rules.
When my bowling alley shoes did not allow me to “slide”, the “desk folk” said, “oh, the shoes here aren’t made for sliding, just be careful.” In Bowling for Dummies, plus books by Hall of Famer, Earl Anthony, and watching Dick Weber’s style, (real names from the past), one of the essential tips for approaching the foul line was the perfect “slide.” So, I just attempted to be careful.
We declined using the gutter bumpers because, after all, the grandkids no longer want to be viewed as “little kids” and, since both of them beat me every game, I guess I was the one needing a gutter bumper. Adding to my mild humiliation, after each bad throw, the scoring monitor displayed cartoon videos depicting in one way or another, an epic fail – explosions, car wrecks, brick walls collapsing, a cowboy shootout, or TKOs – for all to see. The screen also includes your ball speed in miles per hour! I did eight miles an hour with an eight-pound ball (wimpy). Everyone around me seemed to be speeding at over thirty mph.
Fondly remembering good times on a league with better bowling techniques and respectably higher scoring games, I would longingly look over at a group of seniors bowling on the far, right lanes where everyone was having fun and knew all of the rules – and how to slide!