DB: Bowling for Dollars
I’m standing here on a hardwood stage, on a Monday night, holding a giant pink globe who’s surface has been penetrated with three strategically placed mine shafts. Their quarry in question is grip, and like faithful miners my two middle fingers and thumb plumb the depths of those dark shafts to find purchase enough to hold this pink planet up and in front of my ridged body with the reverence and poise one would need to hold a soon to be useful sacrificial knife.
My Grandfather was a hell of a bowler, only slightly bested by his wife, Grandma Pat who still bowls to this very day. He joined the Air Force, leaving a song and dance life behind as soon as he was able, which was probably like 14 years old judging by the looks of him in the pictures. World War II had a strange affect on him and seemed to strip any and every creative performance bone out of his body. Not that he had much to come back to, by that time the war seemed to have vaulted us out of the great depression, Vaudeville was dead and was replaced as America’s blue collar entertainment by the cinema and the bowling alley.
There are only three bowling alleys in the greater Tacoma area (that I know of). Tower Lanes, deep west on 6th Ave and Narrows Plaza off 19th and Mildred are your typical dingy tobacco stained holy rock and roll blue collar nirvanas. Both touting their own lounge area and arcade, (Tower even has mini-golf!) you will be hard pressed to find a more American environment to thrust any curious exchange students or visiting relatives from your ancestral breeding grounds. Chalet bowl is a little different…
Located in the Proctor district next door to a wine bar and across the street from a bird food store, Chalet Bowl is hardly what I would describe as dingy, or even blue collar for that matter. On Monday nights there is a $7 all you can bowl (shoes included!) till midnight special. When we got here at ten the lights were all on bright as day and the place was as empty as Chief Brame’s six gun.
About 10 of us ended up sharing a quartet of lanes and about fourscore beers. They turned the florescent lights off when I stepped up to the line and fired on the neons and the black-lights and the dance floor wiggy-waggler-lazer show. Up came the music, as classic of rock as the hope diamond, and I suddenly felt like I was on the stage of my grandfather’s childhood.
My grandfather’s father was a traveling vaudevillian. In those days, or so I’ve been told, that pretty much made my grandfather (and the wagon full of odd-wives children that constituted his siblings) an amateur vaudevillian by default. He spent his formative years tapping out show tunes to bawdy crowds on a different hardwood stage every night. Decidedly proud of their being decedents of the infamous Frank and Jessie James, many of their “acts” concerned the more celebrated reenactments of locomotive liberation (read: glorification of criminal prank). In an epic if not twisted display of creative parenting, family law cited that if you were good you got to be a James brother, and the worst sort of punishment (outside of being pushed off the wagon in the last town) was being forced to play the part of a Pinkerton.
Sure, things have evolved somewhat … ok … things are totally radically different, but the low lights, loud music, hardwood floor and the goal of “knocking em’ dead” to get out of the great depression were hauntingly familiar. I did a dance in my fancy borrowed shoes and let my Pinkerton globe fly toward its goal of destroying the oddly man-shaped triangle formation of troops, satisfyingly smashing the living p-word out of the lot of them. Returning to my space age blacklight-glowing fancy bowling seat, I decided that for depression’s sake, this may be my Monday ritual for a while.
Filed under: DB
10 comments
M Mofo from the Hood January 7, 2009
Hey, let’s hear it for Proctor Bowl. That’s where I learned the “sport.” That was when the front of the building had huge picture windows and right behind them a pool table. It’s been years since I’ve been there and I’m guessing that the pinball machines are gone also.
C crenshaw sepulveda January 7, 2009
At one time Tacoma had more bowling alleys per capita than any other city in America.
D Droid16 January 7, 2009
Tacoma is the home of bowling’s Babe Ruth, Earl Anthony. I think the UWT should have a collegiate bowling team.
A Andrew R Campbell January 8, 2009
“…the place was as empty as Chief Brame’s six gun.”
Dang… unless I totally mistook this, that sounded like a joke about a local guy who murdered his wife in front of their children. That didn’t sit quite right with me.
Otherwise, fun article. Tacoma has a rich bowling history, that’s for sure. And bolwing our way out of the depression sounds like good advice- does the infrastructure improvement section of the proposed stimulus package include upgrades to bowling alleys?
C crenshaw sepulveda January 8, 2009
I’m hearing that Obama want to take out the bowling alley in the white house and replace it with a basketball court. We will have to stimulate on our own, I’m afraid.
T Thorax O'Tool January 9, 2009
Yet we let things like Lincoln Lanes sit idle and rot away.
H holden January 9, 2009
“I stepped up to the line and fired on the neons and the black-lights and the dance floor wiggy-waggler-lazer show”
My nephews love to go bowling at Chalet. Saturday from 4:30 – 6:30 is Disco Bowling – so much fun! and, it totally wears the out.
J Jena January 10, 2009
I went there once. What I remember last was wearing a bowling pin costume and a helmet, and the bartender asking me, “are you sure you want that?” as I chugged my last glass of wine. Good times.
M Mofo from the Hood January 11, 2009
Lazer light shows, disco, neon, wine…What’s happened to the game of bowling? Sometimes a regular guy just wants to bowl a couple of game’s on the Brunswick field and wind down a tough day of work. Isn’t there any place left that a guy can roll some serious game?
T Tacoma Bowler January 14, 2009
Tacoma bowling has changed a lot in the last 10 years. But some inaccuracies in this story.
Pacific Lanes at 72nd and “D” street is still open and the best bowling center in Tacoma, plus Bowlero Lanes in Lakewood off STW and Paradise Village in Parkland when you talk “Greater Tacoma area” But within city limits I believe only Pacific, Towers and Chalet. Narrows is in UPlace.
The quote of “are your typical dingy tobacco stained holy rock and roll blue collar nirvanas” is wrong too. No smoking in bowling centers since the law went into effect and Towers has new owners that have cleaned it up quite a bit. The owner of Chalet is also involved with ownership at Narrows. Narrows just put in brand new lanes and computer scoring. Pacific is still the best place with great staff and moonlite bowling (colored pins and win cash) vs Rock and Bowl.
But the best center in Tacoma was New Frontier. An Icon with the “BOWL” letters on the building along with the neon sign (now in the New Frontier Lounge by the TDome)
Worked there for 10 years, bowled leagues, moonlight, tournaments, etc. People came from Seattle to bowl Moonlight and also the 24 hr bowling on Fri/Sat nite for $1 a game. I bowled 5 300 games in New Frontier. The senior bowlers called it their “2nd home”.
Lincoln bowl is no more. I spoke with Jim Stevenson the other day and Lincoln is no longer; it is a warehouse. Lanes and machines are gone. He sold it a few years ago, then had to take it back from purchaser.
Regardless…bowling has changed immensely in Tacoma and the Northwest the last few years. New Frontier would still be here except the last owners bankrupted the place. One owner screwed his partners and moved to Florida protecting himself from lawsuits and bankruptcy. That person now manages bowling center at McChord… why I have no idea.
New bowling centers are in Tukwila by the Southcenter Mall (ACME Bowl) and they charge around $5 or $6 per game. Lucky Strike centers put in a center in Bellevue, pricey as well with fancy bar, etc., many location around the country, hold many corporate bowling parties etc.
Oh yeah, don’t forget, the ELKS lodge in Tacoma had 8 lanes too, downstairs… you have to keep score the old fashion way, PENCIL AND PAPER!