Early morning, My mini-bowling alley

This was a non-standard morning.  Cindy set an early alarm so she could accompany Katie to take baby DJ for a procedure in North Fort Myers.  At first I didn’t think I would fall back asleep but I did somehow.  After eating breakfast I headed straight out to the coop to get it cleaned before leaving.  It was still pretty dark so the chickens were still all on the perch.  I wound up carrying each hen out one by one.  Each birds reaction to being held is different which is funny to me.

Originally I assumed with taking the time to clean the coop before work I would be pretty late getting into the office.  I walked in the door only five minutes late which was unexpected.  I’m hoping DJ’s procedure goes well and his happy little existence rolls on with only a small bump in the road.

For some reason when I was walking out to the car last night after work I was thinking about a childhood activity that provided me endless hours of entertainment, table top bowling.  I was a real bowling enthusiast as a kid.  We had a bowling alley only a couple miles from our house.  I participated in several bowling leagues and used to watch the PBA tour religiously on ABC.

My brother and I used to have a full size bumper pool table in our attic bedroom.  Bumper pool was ok but I got my real enjoyment when we would put the top on the table, giving me a nice flat surface to “bowl” on.  The pool balls were all red and white except for two of them.  One was a red ball with a white dot and the other a white ball with a red dot.  I always preferred using these as my bowling ball because the dot allowed you to visualize the spin you were imparting much easier.

The “pins” were a collection of various empty bottles that I had collected.  I don’t think I even had a full set of 10.  I would even manicure the “lane” by spraying down a fresh coat of Pledge so the ball could slide in a more realistic way, similar to a real lane.  Most of the time my “games” were solo, I don’t think I ever kept score.  I just had fun spinning the hell out of the ball and seeing if I could control the hook enough to knock down the various pin configurations I would set up on the other side.

As I thought about those simple days I compared it to modern times were children have become addicted to screens and seem unable to be entertained without them.   How did I manage to be so entertained for so long with a pool ball and some empty bottles….