Kommentary Korner

As usual, I’m baffled by this wacky country we call the U.S.A. The other day, an afternoon of tenpin bowling sounded delightful so I hopped in my car and drove to a nearby bowling alley. As I entered the establishment, I was hit by a most sudden and disturbing revelation. Although never having stepped foot in that ramshackle bowl-porium before, I felt as though I’d been there many times. I’ve been in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of bowling alleys in my life, and I realized on that fateful day that they are all identical. The Bowl-shevik Revolution Lanes and Lounge, as it was called, was merely a clone of every other bowling joint I’ve visited in my life. All bowling alleys in America share identical sensory stimuli, particularly to the eyes and nose. They look as though they haven’t been redecorated since about 1966. They all have the smell of cigarette smoke and stale Miller Genuine Draft imbedded into the walls. They all possess a stratified layer of unidentified grime on every surface. These common characteristics of American bowling alleys have led me to a conclusion with unsettling political implications. I have a theory that, sometime in the 1960s, the Johnson administration declared a moratorium on the construction of new bowling alleys as well as the maintenance of pre-existing alleys. This explains the outdated and dilapidated conditions we are forced to bowl in today. Mysteriously, however, any records of President Johnson’s bowling alley nonproliferation executive orders have been erased. The truth has been concealed from the American public, for whatever reason, leaving us to bowl in tacky squalor. But, in spite of all this, I am optimistic that the future is bright for disgruntled, unsatisfied bowlers like myself. One day, a person will be able to freely hurl a 6 to 15 pound sphere along a greased wooden lane at a formation of neatly arranged blunt, ironically-named pins in a clean, sanitary, freshly scented environment decorated in a tasteful, contemporary fashion. Whoever is preventing bowling alleys from entering the 21st century can’t hideout for long. Soon, the cries for new and improved bowling alleys will be too loud for the architects of this oppressive conspiracy to ignore. --Peter Doe