A 1992 tournament was supposed to be a relaxing break from a tumultuous year. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
The year 1992 was a memorable one for me, but one that I’d just as soon forget. There was a lot going on that year that weighed on my young mind. After nearly two years, I’d realized that community college wasn’t for me. I dropped out before graduating without a backup plan. Complicating matters was the fact that I was also seriously lovesick that entire year. I continued to work my part-time job, but the spectre of going back to school or getting a full-time job was looming very large.
It may not seem like a big deal now, but the stress that year was very real, and began manifesting what felt like some legitimately scary health issues. I even went to a cardiologist, convinced that I’d developed an arrythmia. The doctor was kind enough to see me for a nominal charge after realizing that I didn’t have insurance—I was no longer on my parents’ plan after turning 18, so that became yet another thing to stress about. Reassured that my heart was healthy, I joined a gym—the now long-gone Laurel Fitness & Swim Club in the Georgetown Alley section of Laurel Shopping Center—and started working out regularly. Although doing cardio exercises only seemed to worry me even more. It was a Catch-22.
One of my oldest and best friends, Rodney Pressley, was going through a similar tough time. He’d given up a part-time restaurant job and had no prospects at that point. But he had an idea that he felt might help us both relax and have some fun while we sorted our our next moves. “We should join a bowling league,” he said. And at the time, it sounded like the greatest advice any human had ever come up with.
As luck would have it, the old Fair Lanes bowling alley in Laurel—which we both grew up within walking distance of and spent countless hours at as kids—was organizing a weekly Monday night doubles league. For only $12 a week, we could compete in a 12-week tournament for a chance to win $1,000. We didn’t actually think we had a chance of winning, mind you; we just thought the experience would be fun and less boring than running on treadmills and lifting weights. And so we signed up, not really knowing what to expect, but eager to try.
I’ll never forget that first October night. Our opponents were an older gentleman and his grandson. They were nice, and we had a really good time bowling with them; but they beat us handily—all three games. It wasn’t even close. Clearly, Rodney and I were out of practice. But as we would soon discover, there was a silver lining to not being in school or having a full-time job—there was plenty of time for bowling practice.
In fact, we made it our mission that entire autumn to practice as if our very lives depended on it. I spent every day that first week at the bowling alley working on my mechanics. I’d been a decent duckpin bowler as a kid, but this had been my first foray into a tenpins league. After the first few days of practice, my left leg was so sore, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to even make it to the second game. I remember limping into Dart Drug, looking for something like IcyHot that wouldn’t smell like IcyHot.
The practice began paying dividends immediately. The next week, we played a pair of laid back, longhaired fellows whose team name was “Old No. 7”—a nickname for Jack Daniels whiskey, and a product that probably could’ve been their official sponsor. Not only did we win our games, but by the fourth week we were surprised to find ourselves in first place by a whopping half a game. “Don’t get used to it,” I remember telling Rodney. It was likely just a fluke that the better teams had all lost that week.
But evidently it wasn’t a fluke. We continued to do just enough to not only win games, but to remain in first place by the skin of our teeth. Some games I’d roll better, and some games Rodney would save us. As far as comfortable leads go in sports tournaments, this was anything but comfortable. By just that fourth week, we were already more stressed than we’d been before we’d started.
And it got worse before it got better. For eight more consecutive weeks, we held that precarious half-game league lead—two entire months in first place. But if we’d lost just one match, we would’ve been toast. So we soldiered on, practically living in the bowling alley throughout that November and December.
At some point, I invested in a bowling ball from Herman’s World of Sporting Goods at the mall. Nothing too fancy, but just something that I felt might give me more consistency than the Fair Lanes house balls—some of which might’ve been as old as the bowling alley itself (it opened in 1961). Rodney was content to stick with the house balls, and both of us continued to rent those hideous red and green bowling shoes.
On the whole, I remember most of the others in that league not taking themselves too seriously, but there were a few teams who clearly meant business. They wore bowling shirts filled with award patches from past leagues, had their own shoes, and wrist braces that looked like something from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Rodney and I didn’t go that far; we just put in the practice and fortified ourselves with subs from nearby Shane’s Sandwich Shop and Mike & Ike candies from the vending machine.
As improbable as it had seemed to us back in October, Rodney and I found ourselves in the championship game on December 28th, competing for the grand prize of $1,000. We played against a husband and wife team—the team that had been trailing us by that mere half-game for weeks. I remember the husband being one of the more intense personalities, while his wife was more amicable.
The reality that we were suddenly in a position to win it all was almost overwhelming. It was all or nothing. Rodney’s twin brother, Ronald, came over to lend support. He sat at the table behind us as we settled into lanes 1 & 2. I actually dreaded the lanes at the edges—I just never felt comfortable bowling beside the walls. More stress. And every time I glanced back at Ronald, his face seemed to convey, “Don’t (screw) it up.”
But that’s exactly what we were doing in the first of the three games—(screwing) it up. Rodney bowled a season-low 131, and I rolled a miserable 158. The husband finished with 167, and the wife had the highest score of all with 180. As the negative thoughts began to creep in, I noticed the husband pumping his fist in celebration, and then he made a comment to the wife about how this was going to be easier than they thought. It was at that moment, I think, that we woke up.
Things started to go right for us in the second game, and we never looked back. Rodney rolled a game-high 202 and 191, respectively. I finished with a solid 172 and 171. Mr. Intensity, on the other hand, melted down. He regressed, bowling a 159 and 154. And he wasn’t pleased with his wife’s final score of 125, despite the fact that her first two scores were significantly better than his.
Having won the best of three games, we’d actually done it—we were champions! It was one of the biggest moments of genuine relief either of us have ever experienced, before or since. But the stress wasn’t entirely gone, because we still had to walk through the bowling alley parking lot at midnight with $1,000 cash in our pockets. Back in the safe confines of my 1981 Oldsmobile Omega, I’m sure we pondered what we’d do with our winnings. But what I remember thinking most in that moment was that I will never—ever—join another competitive bowling league.
I was grateful to be done, but perhaps even more grateful that the year itself was ending. 1993 arrived just four days later and felt like a page had turned. I ended up enrolling at the Corcoran School of Art that year, which was a life-changing experience in the best possible way. And to this day, I haven’t felt that kind of stress again.
I’m sure there’s a metaphor in here somewhere about life—something about rolling a strike after a gutter ball—but my advice to anyone even considering joining a bowling league as a means of dealing with stress is, well... never mind. The bowling alley closed in 2019. Let’s just say that’s one less thing you have to worry about.
Richard Friend is a founding member of The Laurel History Boys, and creator of LostLaurel.com.
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