THE GRATEFUL DEAD

My best pal jOhn A. and I decided to do something different, so we went bowling. This woman on the lane next to us was one of the area's top female pin smashers. She also looked like a man. Over on lane 23, some NASCAR worshipper with no shirt to disguise his beer gut was balancing the ball in one hand and a bottle of Busch in the other. Normally, I would have reported this man to the Suffolk, VA Border Patrol, but I was in a good mood. All of my games were over 50.

Before rolling our last ten-framer, the manager of Plaza Bowl came over to the ball retriever and asked me, "Are those bowling shoes you're wearing?" I answered, "Why, yes they are." Now, anyone who'd known me in 1992 could confirm that my three biggest hobbies were making homemade T-shirts, collecting BBW (Big Beautiful Women) magazines, and creating fake bowling shoes. The pair I was sporting this day were K-Swiss Classics colored with various shades of Crayola markers. To the untrained eye, the shoes looked as authentic as those one could rent for $150. However, Mr. Joe Bowler Manager Man wasn't convinced. "Are you sure those are bowling shoes?" he again inquired. "Yes, sir. I bought them while visiting The Bowling Capital Of America -- St. Louis," was my rapid-fire reply. Shaking his head, the manager debated, "No! The bowling capital is in Detroit." To which I countered, "Then why is the PBA Hall Of Fame in St. Louis?" Becoming red in the face, he went, "OK, genius! What is a 7-10 split?" Converting his lame-ass inquisitional spare, I re-racked the pins for this great possessor of bowling knowledge -- "What is a banana split?" With his Sunday ball, Joe Bowler aimed, "When the 1,2,3,4 and 7 pins are left in the rack." "Wrong! It's a dessert," I told him.

Not long after this episode, I read in my favorite section of The Virginian-Pilot that Mr. Joe Bowler had passed away in a Norfolk hospital. Pretending I'd been a teammate of his gained my entrance into the wake. After indulging in refreshment, I walked over to Joe Bowler's open casket and quietly asked him, "Are those bowling shoes you're wearing?"